


C is for Charlotte

by Geertrui



Series: Charlotte [2]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Crossdressing, Daddy Kink, Drunken Makeouts, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, Feminization, M/M, Romantic Comedy, Secret Identity, Unrepentant Daddy Kink, Vague Game of Thrones References, gay clubs, gender fluidity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-07-16
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7019929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geertrui/pseuds/Geertrui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik doesn't go to clubs, until the one time he does. He meets a girl. And then there's a time after that. And a time after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Daddy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thacmis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thacmis/gifts).



> Beta'd by, conceived with, and written for Thacmis. Congratulations on graduating; I wish this story was even half as cool as you are.

 

 

 

~*~

 

“I’m not going,” said Erik on Monday when he’d caught Emma lingering in the doorway.

She fell into the staff common room, swooping into the seat beside him and letting her white plume of a dress waft around her. “You should have _been_ there,” she said anyway, faraway eyes fixing on the scant slither of brick between the _Inclusive Learning_ and the _Do You Know How to Handle Combustive Mutations?_ posters. “There were, I’ll tell you, there were _at least_ five shirtless dancers -- and they were just regular people! Just imagine how many men you could--”

Erik kicked her shin as Logan Howlett hunkered into the staffroom. He smelt of dirt and grass and the vulcanised rubber of a thousand footballs.“That’s well and good,” Erik said slowly through his teeth. “But I’m not going.”

 

She tried again on Wednesday, loitering around the English block waiting for him to finish his class. “Squandering a valuable free period,” he muttered under the squabble of the teenagers. He hiked the hideous orange basket full of faded green _Komm mit!_ textbooks up on his hip and barely missed elbowing a girl in the head.

“Let me help,” Emma tittered, but Erik firmed his grip on the basket and gave her a _look._

“Oh, come on,” she tried again, “It’s trivia night!”

“Who else is going?”

“Kitty from creative arts, Bobby from HSIE--”

Erik cut her off as he unlocked the storeroom. “Didn’t Robert come out the other month?”

“Well, yes--” 

“And I thought Katherine was a lesbian.”

Emma glared. From a woman wearing bright green leggings and jazz shoes, it was surprisingly harsh. “You never do anything fun. You _need_ to be more social. Or else Sebastian might think you’ve fallen out with the staff and offer to transfer you.”

He hadn’t fallen out with anyone; he’d just never fallen _in._ “I’ll be social when you stop trying to get me to go to _that_ club.”

Emma rolled her eyes and sank her weight on a hip. “It’s 2016, you’re allowed to be gay, Erik.”

“Oh, I’m fine being gay,” he scoffed as he started stacking the textbooks. “I’m also fine being single.”

 

“I’m not going,” Erik says now on Friday, staring up at the italicised, neon purple headache of an embellishment. _Hellfire Club._ He reads it with a heavy resignation. “You can’t make me go in.”

Emma has her arm looped with his but she can’t hear him over her conversation with Kitty, which is slowly gaining in pitch. He’s honestly surprised Kitty made it this far. She’d been crying over Emma’s cat at pre-drinks. (“I want a cat, I’m _gay,_ I’m _meant_ to have one. Stupid roommate’s noodle boyfriend and his stupid allergies,” Erik recalls.) Now she laughs and leans heavily on Emma, and looks younger than she is with her flushed cheeks and ponytail.

He feels the music thump through the concrete. The queue bumps a few paces, and for want of something better to do he stares at the ground and pretends he’s at home, on his couch, with a beer and the eleven p.m. German news broadcast on MBC 1.

Kitty grabs onto his arm, forming a little group. A little queer trinity. “I didn’t know you were _gay,_ ” she slurs loudly. “I thought you were just, you know, German.

“We had a wager with drama. _Is he gay or European_?” she laughs. Erik doesn’t but she isn’t looking at him anymore, instead they’re shuffling up, and up again, and then they’re met with the bouncers.

Kitty has to show her card, which isn’t surprising, and Emma holds her arm around her waist as if they’re a couple to make sure she gets in. She may as well be holding a person-sized amount of jello. The bouncer gives him a pointed look but Erik doesn’t pull out his ID. He’d stopped needing ID when he was sixteen.

They wind around into the u-shaped entrance of the club, where an exuberant, green-haired man sits with a till and another man in pants and a black studded chest-harness stands beside him. _I’m not going, I’m not here,_ Erik thinks to himself as he longingly watches his twenty being stuffed in the register. _I’m not going, I’m not here,_ he thinks as he holds out his forearm and gets stamped by the leather dom. The rainbow ink smudges into a yucky green colour when his watch slides over his wrist, marring the evidence but not ridding him of it. It’s a tattoo to remind him for the entire hungover weekend ahead of him that he did this. That he did go to the Hellfire Club, that he was here.

They round the corner. The music pumps through him and rattles his teeth. It’s a new pop song that’s overplayed on the radio, except now it’s full of fat bass and repetitive builds. It’s hard to focus on when Erik looks up at the disarming mass of semi-naked people all pushing around against each other on the outdoor dancefloor.

It only takes a handful of seconds before some kid knocks into him and spills their bright red drink all over his shoes. The kid looks around dazedly at him, head craned awkwardly and _god,_ he’s not _that tall,_ but then he notices the youth’s shiny, red eyes and sighs and rolls his own. Kitty squeals next to him as she spies someone in the crowd, pushing into him and toting Emma behind her. She gives him a look that’s _almost_ apologetic. Almost.

 _Get us drinks,_ she sends him, but in a tiff of rebellion Erik instead sits and pulls his pack of Dunhill Blues from his black leather pants, and lights up. It isn’t often that he smokes publicly, lest a student spy him, and the idea leaves an unprofessional taste in his mouth; but he looks around, and there are twenty-year-olds everywhere sharing cigarettes and mouths, paying him no mind, which is well and good because he’s much too old for them, anyway.

 _Twenty-eight isn’t old, people are into that,_ interrupts Emma. _Drinks!_

Erik holds a lungful of smoke and watches a boy in shiny hotpants and suspenders and knee-high boots -- in _only_ shiny hotpants and suspenders and knee-high boots -- twirl in front of him. He looks down at Erik and winks, shaking his ass a bit and looking like he wants to climb Erik like tree. Thankfully some other boy pulls him into his arms and sticks his tongue down his throat, and Erik looks back down at the red ember of the cigarette and lets wisps spill slowly from his mouth.

After this cigarette, he tells himself, he’ll go to the bar. Just after this cigarette. But then he’s down to the filter and there’s nothing left to draw on, so he crushes it beneath his heel and unfolds himself from the bench. Two girls watch him hungrily, and he thinks he could have taught them only a few years ago so he gives them nothing more than an uninterested glance. A boy in a tight shirt with beautiful light-blue skin looks at him appraisingly; as he’s distracted, someone half a head shorter than him knocks into his side with force.

She’s halfway across the courtyard before Erik even steadies himself, her long, stockinged legs carrying her to the open entryway which she skips up into on her shiny black pumps. She has a bright pink dollar store bucket-tub full of empty cans and cups tucked under one toned arm. The brown curls bunched in her ponytail whip over her shoulder as she casts a look back at the courtyard, searching for him with apology in her lash-framed eyes, but while Erik stares openly at her she doesn’t find him. She doesn’t waste a second before she’s turning back inside, back into the bar.

Erik swallows, and follows her.

Here the lights are dimmed and burn from behind red glass, giving the room a soft, warm ambience. That, or it’s just the heat seeping from the fifty odd people all falling around. Erik picks at the sticky parts of his turtleneck. The bar is a rectangle of counters with taps and bottles and kegs in the middle, and along the room's perimeter are tables with high stools. There are two bathrooms to Erik’s left, next to a short downwards walkway leading to the indoor dance floor, and there’s another opposite him leading to the poker machines. A gargantuan, aged ATM hunkers in the corner, summoning the intoxicated patrons. And in front of him, thrusting the pink tub to some lost looking man with an earpiece and a tight black shirt, is the girl.

Someone whistles as she twirls around and slides over the top of the bar, and she throws her hand up and settles the other on her hip when she lands neatly. Her underarms are shaved, but her shoulders are broad, toned with muscle, and her collar bones are stark lines above the swell of padded breasts. Erik swallows again. _Drinks_. He is supposed to be getting _drinks_.

Club bars are different to pub bars. In the deep red light and the heavy heat, whoever manages to wedge themselves to the front is served first, and he only remembers this after about teen minutes of standing to the side letting drunk girls push in front of him. When a gap forms between the cocktail dresses he pushes in, and towering over everyone he waits, watches.

The bartender makes quick work of the drinks, zipping from one end of the bar to the other while her coworker tackles the clambering mess on the opposite side. Over the music, Erik hears her laugh at something someone says, and _something_ bubbles up in him. He’s just tipsy. He bites his lip, tries to stop looking but he can’t. The black corset she wears gives her a waist, gives her hips, the leather skirt covers only half of her thick thighs, clings to her backside. He didn’t want to come here in the first place, Erik tries to remind himself as he watches her pumps glint in the light; watches her walk towards his side of the bar.

Manicured fingers splay over the glossy counter. Erik looks up. The first thing he notices is the way the girl’s eyes widen, too, how it makes her eyelashes look longer. Then he notices that her cheeks are bright pink, and from the way her gaze flicks down his body he bets that it has nothing to do with the lamps.

She wears a thick velvet choker, but it isn’t tight enough and so it’s slipped down a little, twisted so it’s the chain and latch that’s at the front and over her poignant Adam’s apple instead. When Erik thinks this, she flushes even darker, and brings one of those wide hands to her neck.

Someone elbows him in the ribs, and Erik coughs, and the moment shimmers away. The girl pulls on a smile and trails her eyes up Erik’s chest appraisingly, blatantly. She leans across the bar. The choker is back in place.

Her lipstick is a dark red. Beneath her bottom lip is a slight patch of dark that follows the cut of her shadowy jaw. Her perfume is bosky. Over the music, she yells, “And what can I get you, daddy?”

Her eyes are deep, her voice deeper. Daddy. _Daddy._ “I... um,” says Erik.

She looks at him all smirks and confidence, stretches a little as she leans forward and it makes her waist slighter.

Erik swallows. “I,” he tries again. Words. Drinks. Daddy. “Um.”

The bartender laughs. Erik feels something soft in his mind that wasn’t there before. She grins bashfully down at the counter -- as if she’s never gotten this kind of reaction before -- and then tosses a wisp of her fringe back into place as she looks back at him. “Once more.”

“I,” begins Erik. He’s got this. He can do this. He just has to get drinks.

“You’re a very pretty woman,” he accidentally blurts instead.

Her eyes get all crinkly in the corners when she grins like that. Her pink cheeks fill out. “Thank you, mister.” She says it so softly Erik hardly hears. “Was there anything I could do for you?”

“Gin and tonic,” he finally gasps, “And a Fire Engine. And a Double Black.”

She gives him an interesting look and then turns, and when she comes back there’s a can and two plastic cups on the counter - one red, one fizzy and clear. He gives her twenty five and her thick, warm fingers brush over the soft pale side of his wrist.

She starts to turn to the women beside Erik, but before she’s gone -- and Erik doesn’t really know what prompts him to do it, especially with his dry mouth and hammering heartbeat -- he reaches out for hand, and he says, “What is your name?”

The warmth in his head coils and curls and lights up -- surprise. Emma does that too. “Charlotte,” says the bartender strangely, as if she’s unused to telling people. She swallows heavily, and Erik watches the shift of her throat.

He lets her go, watches her turn back into the squabble, that flirty grin tugging her lips, her rough hands on her narrow hips. The front of the skirt is puckered oddly, and Erik can’t tell if it’s the zipper or something else.

He manages the drinks, and manages the crowd, edging and dodging back to the outdoor seating, and he manages somehow to find Emma and Kitty amongst the mass. They squeal and giggle together, but Erik just stares down at the scratches on the table. _Charlotte,_ Erik thinks as he thumbs through the condensation on his smirnoff.

He decides he’ll go back to the bar later, and he’ll buy another drink, and he’ll say something better to Charlotte -- Charlotte with her wide hands and broad shoulders and her chocolate coloured wig. With her stubble. With her _daddy._ He might ask her when she finishes, he might wait.

But then Kitty starts crying again and Emma complains of her suppressants wearing off, and of a headache from the people around her. Erik stubs his cigarette with a resigned, smoke-filled sigh. He holds Kitty around her waist and lets her blubber all over his turtleneck, nodding to one of the patrolling bouncers with a stern brow. The exit is inside, near the bar, so Erik manoeuvres them in and around the tables.

Emma talks to the bouncer manning the door, and unabashedly stares at the trees-for-arms he has crossed over his bulging chest. Erik takes the moment to glance back at the bar. It’s not so crowded now so from his vantage point so he he can clearly see Charlotte chatting as she wipes out plastic glasses. But then she freezes, and looks up over at him, as if he’d called her name, called her attention.

At first she beams, but then Erik watches her look at Kitty, tucked under his arm and pawing at his chest, and something sour twists her face, something hurt. She's frowning, eyes slightly squinted. Erik has the strangest need to call out, no, she’s just drunk, she’s a colleague, but then Emma’s saying, “Come on, you two,” and she's pulling him out the door and into the crisp autumn air.

He didn’t even want to come, Erik has to remind himself as he hunkers into a taxi after Kitty, pulling her belt on with his powers. He doesn’t go to gay clubs, he doesn’t go to any clubs. He shouldn’t feel like missed a step on the staircase.

He gets home at midnight. In the shower he manages to scrub away the stamp, leaving his skin angry red and raw. But while no faded, smeared ink brands the night into him for the remainder of the weekend, regret does a good enough job, and it’s impossible to wash away.

* * *

 


	2. Lemon

“Don’t mention it,” says Erik on Monday when Kitty Pryde grabs his arm, opens her mouth, and sucks in a gale of a breath. “Please, it’s all right.”

Logan is standing over in the corner prodding his meaty, hairy fingers at the _Nespresso U_ as it whirs frantically and beeps angrily. Scott Summers is violently flipping through some glossy car magazine, while Jean Grey is sat tapping on her _MacBook Air_ like she’s on a mission.

“I want to make it up to you,” says Kitty Pryde anyway, and even through the poking, flicking, and rapid staccato, Erik senses a _lull._ Everything is forced to cover the fact that everyone is listening in, and Erik wants to snap, _get back to your own lives,_ because he’s only here to grab his lunch before heading to playground duty. “You’re coming out again on Friday, right? Let me buy your drinks.”

Summers scoffs to himself. Jean’s typing like she’s punching in the code to disarm a nuclear bomb while the seconds tick down. An awkward-sounding trickle begins to pitter into a mug as Erik finds his sandwich untainted in the communal mini-fridge before shrugging into his coat and high-vis vest. “It’s alright, Katherine,” he tries again, but Kitty’s looking up at him with wide eyes, and she’s wearing an atrocious sweater that was either knitted by a four year old or herself. “Please, _don’t_ mention it.”

Unimpressed, she folds her arms over a hot pink and brown squiggle zig-zagging across her chest. “You had to deal with Drunk-Kitty, and that’s not something I’d wish on an _enemy._ I’m gonna find some way to repay you, Erik,” she declares sternly.

Erik laughs, but Emma would call it a grunt and look at him in disappointment if she heard it. He nods her off. “Just take the act of kindness.”

He slips from the staffroom, along a corridor out to the courtyard where kids sit bundled in their scarves and sweaters laughing and squealing. The lettuce hanging from his sandwich has wilted, the puffy roll soggy in parts. Children edge around him, slow their runs to walks; when rubber handballs roll they arc around him, and the wind daren’t blow a single strand of hair down onto his forehead. He is a surveyor. He is the shield that guards the realm of children. And now his Watch begins.

 

Kitty’s blessedly sparse on Tuesday, until she tries to catch him before his free period on Wednesday afternoon, but Erik gestures to the laptop under his arm and the reading glasses on his nose as he ducks up into the blessedly empty faculty staff room. He knows she gives tutoring classes at the community centre after school, so he doesn’t worry about her hanging around for long.

There had been a brightness in her eyes he didn’t like, an _oh, yes, and we should do this!_  on her tongue that Erik doesn’t know how to diffuse. He isn’t wired like that. He knows tact, and he knows empathy, but he knows better how to cut down a person before he can think to use either.

There is a fat stack of homework he needs to mark, but he ignores it for his phone. Checking the office and finding himself still alone, he taps into _Facebook,_ which is open on his last search. Hellfire Club. He thumbs through the feed, looking. There’s an album dated for every past Friday and Saturday, filled with photos of kids huddled together with drinks slopping over their hands. It’s unlikely that she’d be in any of the photos. But Erik still looks: for blue eyes, a soft face, a brown wig.

He clicks into another album and scrolls fast, hurriedly scanning the faces before moving down. It’s all the same clothes, all the same people, all the same makeup. He’s looking for something different. He’s looking for--

“Urgh,” groans Ororo Munroe as she shoulders into the room, basket of English papers under her arm. Erik jolts upright, hits his knee, and drops the phone on his table.

She waddles to her desk, slams the crate down on the carpet. “First years,” she laments, and Erik snorts in sympathy. He turns back to stare at the lacquered wood. His heart is beating so hard he wants to be sick. What does he think he’s doing?

Thursday comes, and so does Emma. She’s stretched over the armrest of his couch, dancer’s body lithe and limber. She lets a huff as she arches, and with her hands on the floor and her head upside-down she forms an almost perfect ninety-degree angle. “So,” she begins. Her toes brush his cheek. “Friday. Plans.”

Erik is sure the byro he’s clenching cracks; but maybe that was just Emma’s back. “I don’t have any,” he announces. Her bright orange leg warmer is fuzzy. He knows because it’s under his chin. “That doesn’t need to change.”

“Hellfire has cheap entry, and five dollar vodka sodas until eleven pm,” she divulges heedlessly. “I’m feeling we should take full advantage of this.”

He strikes red through a sentence. The ink blots. “I don’t think we should.”

“You’re lying.”

Erik chokes on his air. He coughs harshly and his glasses zip off into his lap by their metal frames. Emma smirks.

“You want to see that bartender you spent so long gawking at.” She says it with all the smugness of a cat pawing at a sparrow.

“I- what,” tries Erik; but now Emma’s got him, and it’s futile. “Who?”

She sits up, her white hair fanning across her shoulders. She stares at him with wide, incredulous eyes.

“Say it isn’t so,” she whispers. He can feel her against his mind, but he’s sure the hot blush filling his face is testimony enough. “Erik Lehnsherr, you have a _crush_?”

“It- no, it’s not _that,_ ” he mutters. “It’s an interest.”

“A vested interest!” she crows, throwing her hands up.

He pinches his nose and fixes his glasses. It’s too late. He sighs his last free breath. Every moment from now into the unforeseeable future will have Emma in full Wingwoman mode. “We can go. I suppose.”

“Yes!” she cries, “A crush! Erik has a crush!”

Is that what this is? Is that why he looks through photos for a person he’s only met once, from a club he’s only been in once? He refuses to think himself that lonely.

He reads the same jumbled sentence three times before he crosses it out. _Dancing with the Stars_ comes back on, and beside him, Emma bolts upright and shushes him even though he hasn’t spoken.

*

With a strange kind of gut-twisting, nausea-inducing surreality Erik finds himself staring at the sequins winking at him from the spandex-clad hips of the man standing in front of him. He’s hanging off another man’s arm as they wait in the Hellfire Club’s queue. It’s Friday. It’s a week later. And he’s going to see Charlotte.

His palms are sweating like he’s sixteen again. He rubs them against the leather pants he wore under Emma’s direction (“Along with this button up, and this jacket, and honestly Erik, how many turtlenecks do you _need_?”) but it helps little and presents him as nervous. Emma doesn’t notice, though, doesn’t chastise him. She’s hanging from a friend of hers from a school the district over. Irene, Erik remembers. Where Emma is dressed in snow white Irene’s playsuit and knee-boots are ice blue, and Erik feels cold just looking at the two of them together.

That, or it’s just the chill of nerves knotted in his belly.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he almost needs tweezers to extract it from the constricting crypt of his front pocket. It’s Kitty. She’s sent him a messy _where are you_ to which Erik doesn’t bother replying, because the queue shifts, his thumbs start shaking, and if he doesn’t say _almost inside_ he can still escape.

Chances are Charlotte won’t even remember him. Chances are, she sees a hundred men every weekend, all drunk, all in love her, and she winks and calls them whatever they want to hear and pours their drinks. And then the relationship is over. Sex is the transaction, and instead of a post-coital cigarette she shares her drinks, they taste as sweet as her, and she says, “Have a good night.” Chances are, she won’t even be working.

He shares a nod with the bouncer. He pays his entry fee at the till, and pulls up the sleeve of his jacket. He offers the delicate side of his wrist and watches the brand press down onto his sinews and veins, yellow bleeding into the blue and the purple and smearing easily. It doesn’t bother him. Surveying the outdoor dance floor and its collection of grinding, tangled bodies doesn’t leave him feeling as homesick as he thinks it should. Before, it had been like stepping through the closet, falling down the rabbit hole, to a world of cutting lights and cigarette smoke and messy tongues. Now he knows the seats, and the billiards tables, and the ferns climbing the back wall that conceal the little side-path tucked up there.

He knows where the dark corners are, he knows what moves in them. He knows where the bar is.

“Erik!” squeals someone very loudly, and arms wrap around his neck and he lurches down to Kitty’s height. She wraps herself around him like an octopus, hugging him like he’s some long-lost family member rather than her grouchy colleague. He might have brought her hamantaschen on Purim but he hadn’t thought that would warrant such an embrace. It makes him feel strangely warm. But then he remembers that she is only thoroughly drunk and she won’t remember this next week.

“I’ve missed you!” she crows, hugging him around his middle. “My housemate said she was coming and that she’d bring her brother, but she ditched me for her boyfriend. I’ve been so alone!”

Erik rolls his eyes. Kitty has energy, Kitty has spark. She’s a lure. She’s never alone. “Did her brother come?”

Kitty seems to realise something then, eyes distant as she stares at Erik’s chin dazedly. “Actually, I don’t know.”

Erik can’t help smiling down at her. She graduated and was placed at Hammer Bay Public two years ago, but she could be one of his students like this. She’s wrapped up in a soft green and black flannel. Suddenly, he laughs, and she cocks her head. “You just look like such a lesbian,” he chuckles, and she sticks out her lip and blushes.

“What’s this about lesbians?” says a cool voice behind them, and Erik turns to see Emma and Irene sidling up to them. Instantly, Kitty’s eyes gloss over as she takes in the other woman. Her blush darkens. Over the blaring EDM Erik is sure he can hear her swallow.

Just as Erik thinks Kitty might proposition Irene, Emma pipes up, pulling out her shiny gold iPhone and jabbing a shimmering nail at the screen. “It’s ten-fifty! My vodka sodas!” She thrusts the phone in his face, and squeezes his arm with her other hand. “Quick! You have to save them!”

She wheels him around and pushes him firmly towards the two propped-open doors leading to the inside bar. To the dark corners, to the red lights. “Go forth!”

Erik shoots her a _look_ over his shoulder, but she’s already herding her girls to a table, leaving him to his heavy heartbeat and the murky gloomy abyss beyond the open doors.

As he stands still in the middle of the courtyard Charlotte is both here tonight and she is not. People arc around him, laughing and smoking and taking photos and carrying drinks. No one bumps into him, or jostles him, or notices him. Here, in the courtyard, Charlotte both remembers him and she doesn’t. Her flirting had been to suck him in, and it had been genuine.

Cursing himself and his tipsy insecurities Erik heads in. It’s as he remembers: a short corridor opening to more tables and stools, with bathrooms and stairs down to another dancefloor to his left, the clunking ATM on his right. Kids flitting about on stilletos, their dresses clinging to their hips, hugging and kissing and laughing beneath the thumping music.

And in the middle is the bar, and in the middle of the bar is Charlotte.

Even at this distance Erik can see her smiling. Her lipstick is a soft pink like her blush. Her wig is different. It’s soft black tonight, with salt and pepper streaks. It curls across her neck and collarbones, bared by the steep plunge of her tight, black v-neck tee. It clings to her boxy frame, the swell of her bust. She’s wearing the choker over her Adam’s apple again.

Looking at her Erik feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He feels dirty with every online search he did of the Hellfire Club. He’s sweating and breathing hard and his heart is fluttering in his throat, and he feels unworthy.

But maybe she won’t remember him. Why would she?

He presses into a space in the gathering clustered around the perimeter of the bar, and he waits. He checks his wallet for cash. He checks his work email though he knows he’d chased up any loose-ends yesterday. He touches the metal of coins and keys and zippers, of silver piercings, of the aluminum cans. He stares blankly at the wall of bottles, of vodkas and tequilas and rums, until someone steps into his gaze and leans on the counter.

“Are you alright, man?” he hears, and he snaps his eyes to the figure in front of him. Blond curly hair. White jeans. Huge white wings protruding from his back and sheathed by black studded leather. Not Charlotte.

“Hey,” says the man again, snapping his fingers. “Do you need to call someone?”

“No, I-” Erik glances over at Charlotte. Affection swells in him readily, unbidden, and as if he’d called her name she looks up from her drinks and stares down the bar until she finds him. Her eyes blow wide. Her lashes are thick and inky black, they fan around her pretty blue eyes. And just like that, Erik is caught again.

“Hold on, Angel,” she calls out crookedly, voice rusty. She finishes up, and wipes her hands down the front of her apron, licks her glossy lips. They’re pink and glittery, just like her eyelids. The man, Angel, rolls his eyes and replaces her at the end of the bar.

Charlotte beams up at him. She’s brighter than anything Erik has seen in days. “You’re back again.” She has to lean in to speak over the music. This close Erik can see the pores and follicles at the end of her jaw; the barely-there evening shadow dusting under her chin.

She brings a hand to her chin. He clears his throat. “Yes, my friends wanted me to.”

She smiles like she knows a secret. “Is that the only reason?”

Erik swallows. Swallow, wipe, cough, repeat. Charlotte’s laugh is crystal clear and light. She’s wearing the same perfume as last Friday. “You know, I never got your name, mister.” Here, even as she smiles at him so confidently, when he takes a second too long to reply, she falters. Erik watches the flicker of doubt in her eyes, watches the corner of her mouth twitch downwards. She starts to push back from his space, her uncertainty cutting across her face like shadow from a cloud.

“Sorry,” he blurts, leaning back in. “I’m Erik Lehnsherr.” His surname? Was that too much?

“Erik.” She speaks slowly. His name sounds perfect in her mouth.“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Erik Lehnsherr.” She thrusts out her hand. Her acrylic nails match her glittering pink lips, her glittering eyes.

Her hand is colder than his but the contact sends sparks flying up his arm. “It’s nice to meet you too, Charlotte.”

Is she blushing? Or is it just the lights. She isn’t blushing, she wouldn’t be blushing, he only said her name--

  
“And is there another Mr Lehnsherr?” she asks quickly, looking down at the pattern she’s drawing with her fingers on the counter. Her voice has gone deep again. Her eyes flick up to meet his, then back down, like she doesn’t know where to look. “Or - or a Mrs Lehnsherr?”

She sounds almost jealous. Last week she’d seen Kitty plastered to his side. Her lips had pursed, her eyes were sad, and there had been that _something else._ Now Erik realises why.

“No.” He speaks quickly, too. “There’s no one.”

Charlotte’s head snaps up and her eyes are wide. She beams up at him, and Erik wonders if it might be in relief. 

He’s about to nervously stutter out a, “Do _you_ have a boyfriend?” when his phone buzzes violently against his thigh, and he looks away and down. It buzzes again, incessantly. It’s probably Kitty. Erik tries to weasel a hand down into his too-tight pants, and as he looks back at Charlotte he finds her watching him with something heavy in her clear eyes, something that wasn’t there before.

“What was I doing for you tonight, Mr Lehnsherr?”

It’s double-edged. She’s demure but Erik knows she isn’t playing for that right now. Mr Lehnsherr. That’s what his students call him. He wonders how she’d sound saying _Herr Lehnsherr_ in that accent of hers.

Then his phone buzzes again, and again and once more, and in irritation he yanks it free of his pocket. His phone islit up with incoming texts, all _Katherine_ at _[20:08]_ , all variants of _Erik where are you_ and _Erik hurry up._ Oh, he thinks. It’s 23:08.

“My friends wanted me to get the cheap vodka sodas,” he starts as he thumbs into his phone. His accent gets thicker when he’s nervous. Is it thicker now? “I don’t suppose…”

Charlotte shrugs a broad shoulder. Then she leans in conspiratorially, and Erik can’t stop looking at the way her full lips tug up in a smirk. “I think we can arrange something. How many?”  
  
He looks at her smiling, and he forgets how to count. “Four,” he decides after a beat. “Four, please, thank you.”

Charlotte puts on a show of laying out plastic cups, of turning for the bottle of smirnoff and the lemon pop tap. She lets her weight fall to one hip, pours the vodka, fills it with foamy soft drink. Erik’s mesmerised. Erik’s in love.

No. No, he’s just tipsy. Charlotte is digging for lime slices in the coldwell and Erik stares hard down at his phone, taps out a reply to Kitty. _Back soon._

“Okay,” Charlotte announces, and when he looks back at her and his chest seizes and his stomach twists and his heart sings all he can think is, _I haven’t had that much to drink._

“Sorry, twenty, right?” He pats his pockets for his wallet. Charlotte bites her lip and Erik forgets what he was supposed to be doing.

“Actually,” she starts, and does she sound nervous? Why should she sound nervous? “Since it’s after eleven I can’t put it through the register. I can’t sell the drinks to you.”

Oh, that’s why. The hot prickles of social anxiety sweep up his neck.

“But,” she quickly remedies, and reaches out for his wrist, “If you wanted to make a trade, of sorts…”

There’s no doubt now that she’s blushing, and Erik knows he is too. Oh. That’s not what he was expecting. She thumbs the soft skin beneath his sleeve, and he licks his dry lips.

“What did you want to trade?”

She’s holding his phone hand, and then her fingers sweep down, and then she’s holding his phone. It’s still unlocked from Kitty. “I was thinking,” she says slowly, tapping away, eyes scanning the screen, “You could send me a text, tomorrow, if you wanted.”

She give his phone back, only now it’s open on his contacts and there’s a new entry. _Charlotte X._ There’s a pink bow emoticon next to her name. “Only if you want.”

She’s twirling a curl of hair around her finger, watching him with curious eyes. Erik tries to quash the lump in his throat. He’s never gotten anyone’s number before. “I-- yeah. Yes, I want to, I will. Thank you.”

Erik thinks she almost looks proud of herself the way she’s grinning. “I should get back before Angel has a hissyfit,” she says bashfully, “And before Katherine starts to worry.” She nods down at his phone and winks.

Erik doesn’t want to go, but there isn’t much left to say, and Charlotte’s right. Lest Kitty work herself up he should head back. He pockets his phone, and the way Charlotte’s watching him makes him shiver.

“I’ll come back again,” he tells her as he deftly picks up the cups.

Her lips catch the light. He’s filled with the inexplicable urge to lean down and taste them. “I hope you will, daddy.”

He hasn’t felt like this in years. Has _ever_ actually felt like this? Erik doesn’t even remember the last person he dated. He wants to run, filled as he is with fireworks and bursts of energy and a bubble of happiness that’s shiny as lip gloss. He finds Emma’s table, and when he sits she complains of all the brightness in his head.

Irene is the only one who notes Erik’s tardiness. Kitty makes a show of slurping down her vodka and cheering, while Emma only watches him knowingly. On a table down Erik’s left a man wearing work boots and sock-protectors and little else has started dancing, while around him people whistle and take photos. Does Charlotte dance? She must. Is she a sexy dancer, or does she dance like no one’s watching? He wants to go back inside and ask, ask her to dance with him before she changes her mind and decides that he isn’t what she wants.

They drink, and Emma goes over to the man on the table and jumps up to dance with him, much to Irene and Kitty’s combined wicked joy. Then, riled up, she urges her friends to the actual dancefloor where she twirls Kitty under her arm and grinds on Erik.

And Erik, to his own disbelief, doesn’t mind. He takes her hips and laughs and sways with her, and he feels like something heavy has been taken from his shoulders, something he’d gotten so used to he hadn’t noticed it was there.

Afterwards they’re thirsty and hot and sweaty in so many wrong places it’s right. When Erik offers a round Irene offers to come with him, and no doubt she’s Seen something, from the way she’s smiling a small, pursed-lip smirk.

"What? he chuckles. She shrugs gracefully.

"Something about poached eggs and toast. Brunch food." It's so random that Erik marks it down as Irene being drunker than she appears. 

Charlotte isn’t at the bar, but Angel is. He throws Erik dirty looks he can’t decipher -- but can’t stop wondering if they’re maybe a bit protective once he thinks of it -- slamming his drinks down on the counter with more force than needed, especially for flimsy plastic cups brimming with sticky, drippy vodka.

Erik doesn’t mind that he missed her. He has her number. In his pocket his phone is heavy. It feels like the most important thing he’s ever owned. He’ll go back to the bar.

 

“You know,” slurs Kitty, staring at the space between Erik and her drink, “The brother.”

Words tangle in his mouth. His tongue is too heavy. “The brother?” Erik eventually asks. He feels soft and warm and hot under his jacket and his skin, because he keeps thinking of Charlotte and her pretty nails and her pretty neck.

She grunts as if it’s any explanation. “My house- house… friend’s brother.” Emma and Irene are at the next table over, watching a girl dance over their laps. “You’d like him.”

“He wouldn’t like me,” Erik says, and takes a draw on his cigarette. “No one likes me.”

Kitty mumbles something in response; then she promptly face plants into the wood, and Erik thinks it might be time to call it a night.

Wrangling Irene and Emma from between the thighs of an extraordinarily limber young woman Erik heaves Kitty up between them and starts pulling bodies by zips and belts from their path. It’s past midnight, but they’re the only ones ready to call it a night. A testimony to his age, Erik supposes, or to Kitty’s lightweightedness.

Emma insists on going to the bathroom before they leave, complaining that Erik drives slow when he drinks even when he’s under the legal limit. Irene takes Kitty out to the street, and instead of thirdwheeling -- and that _is_ his reasoning, whatever Emma thinks -- he leans against the wall next to a bathroom door flecked with the fluorescent, goopy innards of a glow stick and watches the bar. Watches Charlotte.

She smiles freely and she laughs loudly. Her movements are gentle and fluid, each one orchestrated, and Erik feels like he’s watching in on one of Emma’s classes. Except this is different kind of performance. Charlotte, with her thick neck and stout hands and crooked voice, is a different kind of woman. Her wig bounces around her shoulders, and Erik wants to run his fingers through the ringlets and swirls.

Erik hasn’t dated anyone in too long a time. But, he thinks, from the way Charlotte had flicked her gaze away in nerves, from the way she’d fastened the choker and fingered her hair as if she were touching it to keep sure of it being there, that Charlotte hasn’t, either.

The door opens beside him. Emma folds her arms and slings her weight to a hip. “Come on, lover boy,” she drawls. She doesn’t sound smug or teasing, she’s in Mother Mode: this is how she talks to a student after they’ve perfected their pointe work, or completed their fouette turns impeccably. 

Maybe, in the future, Erik will thank her.

It’s surprisingly easy to walk over to the bar. It’s easier to catch Charlotte’s attention and fall into the way her bright blue eyes widen and soften with affection.

“You’re off?” she asks, leaning across the counter and flicking her eyes nervously to Emma waiting behind him.

“My friend is a lightweight,” he laments, and she laughs breathily and rolls her eyes. She’s holding his wrist. When did that happen?

“Oh, I know plenty of lightweights.” She cocks her head to the shelves of liquor behind her. “They’ll be all I have to keep me company when you leave.”

He twines their fingers together. He blames it on fizzy lemon pop and smirnoff. “Are you pouting, Miss Charlotte?”

She flushes and looks away and sticks her lip out further, and oh, Erik could kiss her, he wants to more than anything. Her flush darkens. He’s sure he hadn’t spoken outlo--

“Telepath,” she murmurs, and her grip firms. Like she’s scared he’ll leave. “I’m a telepath.”

Warm desire trickles through him. It starts as a slow drip through his chest before sweeping through his belly and leaving it knotted.

Her choker has slipped around again and she hasn’t noticed. Erik waves the fingers of his free hand, and the cheap metal shifts around, pulling the velvet snuggly over her Adam’s apple.

“I can manipulate magnetic fields. I move metal.”

“Oh,” says Charlotte, very eloquently and very breathlessly. “Oh, I see.” She has her hand on her throat, Erik bites his lip.

She fingers the choker gently. “Mutant and proud.”

“Mutant and proud,” he mirrors quietly.

They’re silent together, just watching one another, until Charlotte clears her throat and ducks her head. “Your friend wants you to hurry up,” she giggles.

 

Out on the sidewalk Irene has Kitty nestled under her arm. Erik herds them to his car with much stumbling and cursing, but once they’re all in in some haphazard way or another he’s pulling out into the empty street. For the long day he’s had he doesn’t feel tired in the least.

By the time he pulls up to Kitty’s small house Irene’s got her tongue down her throat, and Emma groans and all but hauls Kitty out by the scruff. Erik watches her walk the arts teacher to her door and fiddle with the keys, all while Kitty keeps a goofy expression on her face. He sees someone silhouetted in the doorway, but nothing more.

Irene stays with Emma, which is a relief because Emma lives only a few streets away from him. His house is still dark and cold and empty, but unlike every other night he doesn’t mind it so much. He flicks lights on. He pulls an Aspirin and a water together. He scrubs off in the shower. And when he gets into bed, the chill in the sheets doesn’t bother him, and neither does the space on his right.

On his phone is an open thread.

 **[00:47]  
** << _Hope you aren’t in bad company. Have a good night. Erik x_

 


	3. Pink

Saturday’s morning greets him with a headache and a general queasy feeling that is simultaneously hollow and bloated. He slings out an arm and grapples for his water bottle, chugging it down and relishing in the chill on his tongue and in his throat. Then Erik lays there on his back, staring up at the ceiling in a limbo-like haze; the space where dreams slip away and memories take their place.

Memories. Phone numbers. Cold, gentle hands.

Erik stares at his phone on the bedside table. He could check it, and he could have a message, but without the shallow support of alcohol he doesn’t think he could reply. Or he might not have a message at all. Charlotte could have just… changed her mind.

It wouldn’t surprise him.

Still he wants to know the time, and this is childish, he’s being childish. It’s Charlotte’s every right not to reply to him if she doesn’t want to. He knows that.

But it still takes him time to lift his hand from the covers and push up to sit and to reach out and take his phone. The lockscreen lights up. Photo-Erik and Photo-Emma grin up at him from behind the glass, unimpeded.

Biting his lip Erik unlocks his phone. It’s still open on his thread to Charlotte, where his message idles. _Seen 02:26._

He’s not disappointed, Erik tells himself. He’s just hungover.

He takes two ibuprofen and broils beneath the shower spray, but the feeling doesn’t go away.

 

If Erik were to construct a list of reasons as to why he doesn’t drink in even the slightest amounts, it would detail only one experience, and that would be the bulk of his Saturday day. He’s curled up on the couch with his sweats tucked into his socks, folders of school work littered around him. His laptop is blinking at him from the pouffe, full of powerpoint presentations of a simulated German weather forecast ripe for the marking. All he has to do is click, read, pass, on _wettervorhersage einz, zwei, drei._

But all he can do is sit here with his mother’s afghan around his shoulders in a listless apathy, watching _The Great British Bake-Off_ and wondering where his life went wrong. He loves his family, and he loves his job, and he loves his friends, for as many headaches as they inspire within him, but it’s just hard to love himself when there’s no one else around to back him up.

Sue Perkins laughs at him. Wasn’t she involved in some cocaine drama? No, that was Nigella Lawson. Erik wishes he looked _half_ as good as she does after years of substance abuse. Erik wonders if Charlotte knows much about British TV personalities and their ensuing gossip. She has an accent, after all.

He groans into his knees and blearily rubs the heals of his palms against his eyes. He doesn’t begrudge her not wanting anything to do with him, he’s just angry himself for playing along.

Midday comes and goes with little fanfare. A change of position, a bowl brimming with sloshing milk and cereal, and a new season’s worth of cakes. Emma sends him a picture of herself frowning on the toilet. She has a string of eyelashes stuck on her gaunt, patchy cheek. Erik’s looking for the broken-heart emoji when it happens.

His phone buzzes so ferociously he almost drops down the crack in the couch cushions in his shock. There’s a notification at the top of the screen. Erik’s heart has somehow climbed into his throat, and it thunders away. _Oh my gosh I’m so sorry I didn’t reply last … ._ There’s a pink emoticon.

He exits Emma’s thread. Now, there’s something new in his inbox, bold and hopeful and waiting to be clicked. 

  
**Charlotte X**

 **[14:26]  
** _< < Oh my gosh I’m so sorry I didn’t reply last night -- we didn’t shut until 5 :( I just woke up now_

Erik is waiting for Mel Giedroyc’s soft lemony voice to wake him from his nap. He’s staring at the screen as though it’s going to suck the message back, like it’ll be taken away from him.

But it isn’t, and he’s awake, and then there’s a little trill of pops -- and Charlotte continues typing.

He doesn’t want to blink in case he misses something. Charlotte stops typing, as if hesitant; then a few seconds later she resumes.

_> > I hope you aren’t too hungover today!! _

His head is clear, his stomach has settled, and his heart has healed. From two simple messages Erik feels he’s finished one of Emma’s putrid herbal detox teas _and_ has just peeled off one of _Sephora’s_ eerily flesh-like face masks. He wants to run all the way over to Emma’s house and wave the phone excitedly in her face. He’s so jittery he can hardly type.

 **[14:28]  
** << _No need to apologise, I hope you slept well_.

It seems hard-edged. Emma would know he’s being friendly, but Charlotte doesn’t know him at all. And he’d like for Charlotte to know him. He sends out a belated smiley face, and watches as instantly a read receipt pops up.

Three little dots wave across her side of the screen. She’s typing back. Erik doesn’t remember the last time he felt this excited.

_> > Aw you’re sweet! I didn’t hear my sister stocking up my fridge so I’d say I slept well, haha. I just hope it was enough to get me through tonight. _

Sweet. Charlotte thinks Erik is _sweet._ He swallows and tries to fight down a smile.

_< < Are you working at Hellfire tonight as well? Your sister sounds like my friend: she’s always bringing me food, even though I eat better than she does. _

_> > Yeeees, and I have a tutoring group over at the the community centre in an hour ): I love all the kids though. My sister thinks that a cheese puff-crust from Domino's is the height of fine dining _

Erik does smile at that. He curls his knees up to his chest. Suddenly, he thinks he understands why people do this. Suddenly, he realises how addicting this is.

_< < What do you tutor?  
<< My friend makes me smoothies with spinach in them. Spinach does not belong in a smoothie. Spinach does not belong in anything. _

_> > Just everything really, to all age groups. I majored in molecular biology, but there aren’t many off-beaten-track-kids who really need explicit knowledge on university-level biochemistry. Also I’m going to have to fight you on spinach- I only shop at FoodFriends, so that says it all. And Spinach ravioli? The bees knees. _

Two things come to Erik simultaneously. The first is that Charlotte is a genius. The second is that Erik has never heard anyone say, with complete sincerity, ‘the bee’s knees’ to describe absolutely anything in his entire life, let alone pasta. Charlotte is a _dork._

_< < You sound way too accomplished to be talking to someone who just watched The Great British Bake Off for four hours. I have to go, I’ll come back when I’m an accredited geneticist with numerous published journals. Also point to you; ravioli is a gift. _

_> > I actually laughed at that, what evil powers do you have? Also when I was seventeen I had a startlingly large crush on Sue Perkins before I discovered she was a lesbian, so I can’t even comment on GBBO. And what do you do then, if you’re not Charles Darwin? _

_< < Evil German troll powers. And I’m currently a LOTE teacher at Hammer Bay High. You can get another point if you guess what language._

_> > More like hot German seduction powers -- you teach German, right? Das heiss.   
_ _> > I can’t get that squiggly B symbol ): _

Oh. Erik swallows. _Oh._ He feels hot down his neck now. Charlotte is flirting. His thumbs move like elephant’s steps across the screen. Charlotte thinks he’s _hot._

Summoning all his charming eloquence and flirting prowess, he types out a message and sends it.

_< < You mean an Eszett? _

Fuck. _Fuck._ There must have been _something_ better to say than _that._ If Emma were here she’d be thumping him over the head.

_> > I think so, hahaha. I don’t know much German I’m afraid. You’ll have to teach me, Sir. _

Oh God. Oh God. _Daddy. Sir._ Erik stares at his phone. He stares at his phone so long a minute ticks by, and then two. He has to flirt back. He doesn’t know what to say.

Charlotte starts typing and then stops. Starts and stops. She’s uncertain. Erik feels the overwhelming need to take it away and replace it with something quick and witty and dirty, but he isn’t good at this, he’s never _done_ this, he’s safer in his isolated little bubble where there are no clubs and no telepaths and no people named Charlotte.

A message comes through. Erik opens it.

 **[14:52]  
** _> > I have to get ready now ): Will you come to the bar tonight??_

Erik looks forlornly out over at his shitty school-issued Dell laptop. It blinks at him. He sighs back.

_< < I have a date with about twenty grade ten German weather reports I’m afraid. Also I think my entourage are still comatose from last night. _

Charlotte starts typing immediately, as if she’s got her confidence back.

_> > Can I say I’m jealous? Haha well, you’d distract me too much anyhow._

Erik types without thinking.

_< < I must have distracting, hot, German seduction powers if I can get free drinks *and* a phone number from a beautiful girl._

His heart beats hard in his chest. He doesn’t realise he’s biting his lip until it starts to sting.

Would Charlotte be blushing right now, if he could see her? Would she have her hands over her cheeks, face turned away and eyes downcast at his words? Erik thinks she likes it. He thinks she likes being called beautiful, and pretty, and maybe even girl.

Eventually, she replies. Erik can hear her huffing at him.

 _> > You stop that. Men with your egos.  
>> I’ll have you know that not everyone gets that kind of special treatment.  
__> > ...This isn’t helping my case, is it? _  
>> _I should go before you get too powerful_  
>> _Keep me entertained tonight would you? XX_

Erik hasn’t felt this light before.

_< < I’ll try my hardest, Miss Charlotte. x _

He isn’t sure what this is, but he doesn’t mind the idea of whatever it might become.

 

Emma comes over on Sunday night, and for the entire evening she stoops over Erik’s shoulder, pouncing on him at every beep and buzz from his phone. “Let me proof-read,” she begs. She has her arm around his neck, wrenching him to the side. She’s ogling the phone as if it’s the rarest, fattest of diamonds.

“It’s not even from Charlotte!” Erik squawks, holding the phone out away from her and peering at the screen. “It’s just an email from Ororo.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “The _other_ message was from _Charlotte,_ don’t even try to lie. Your mind lit up quicker than a fight between Howlett and Summers.”

“You need a leash,” mutters Erik, slipping under her arm and curling over the arm of the couch. He flicks into his phone, quickly replies to his faculty head’s message, then taps into his inbox. Charlotte is working the bar tonight again, but on Sundays they usually close around midnight. She told him that.

She also tells him it’s a slow night. There’s an attached image. Erik’s breath gets all tangled in his throat when he sees it.

She’s looking up at the camera and pouting, fat bottom lip out and pink, a peace sign up at her left cheek. He can see the tips of her manicured nails over her round fingers, and he wonders what colour they are tonight. Red light cuts across her face diagonally, deepening her eyeshadow, her lashes, the thick strokes of her eyeliner. It leaves her lips in paler light, and Erik wonders if they’re really that red in real life.

“Aww,” coos Emma over his shoulder. He hastily clicks to his homepage. He feels like he’s keeping Charlotte a secret. Like if someone from the real world finds out about her she’ll disappear. “Your girlfriend is so cute. Or is she your boyfriend?”

Erik doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. “She’s just Charlotte,” he grumbles, and Emma holds up her hands placatingly, settles back into the couch.

“All right, grumpy. You know, I heard Kitty talking yesterday about how she intends to set you up with someone as… a favour? Since when does she owe you a favour?”

Erik groans and sinks into the couch. “Since I took care of her when she was drunk last Friday. She’s intent on making it up to me.”

Emma snorts. “Probably because you never go outside and she thinks she spoiled the one time you did.”

He remembers the expression that flashed across Charlotte’s face. He supposes it doesn’t matter now, with her phone number nestled snuggly in his contact address book, but the Erik from last weekend would still be sour that he didn’t get another chance to see her. But it’s probably a moot point. Then he stiffens, and his eyes narrow.

“Wait, did you hear her voice with your ears?”

Emma laughs nervously and flicks through channels. “Look, it doesn’t _really_ matter, right? Just be prepared for when she does ask you to a spontaneous weekend of rock climbingor putt-putt golf or _something_ that normal people wouldn’t do. What are we watching? MasterChef repeats?”

Erik’s attention is on his phone. He tries to bite down the irritation but it’s hard. He doesn’t want to meet someone else. There is a great divide between what was Before Hellfire and what is now After Hellfire, and if Kitty had asked him before Charlotte came and made everything new and shiny and purposeful he might have said yes. He would have. Two weeks ago he’d wondered if the quiet of the hall and the dark shadows clinging around the bathroom would always be there.

But this is After Charlotte, and the world hasn’t looked this kind before.

He clears his throat. “Sounds good.” He wriggles back into the couch and hurriedly opens the selfie once more.

Behind her the mini-fridges stocked with UDL and Smirnoff cans and the shelves lined with bottles are a little blurry, like she’d taken this hurriedly. There isn’t any focus in the image, but that just makes it all the more endearing. Erik imagines her glancing around before quickly taking the selfie.

She’s wearing the choker, and what looks like a tight black shirt. This one comes to her neck, obscuring the sharp collarbones Erik knows are hidden underneath. Her wig is a coppery-orange, and it drapes in ringlets across her shoulders, down to the padded swell of her breasts.

Erik swallows. Emma prattles on about Marco Pierre. He types out a reply.

 **[22:17]  
** _< < Too pretty to be bored. I hope the rest of your shift runs smoothly x _

Emma heads home at eleven, leaving Erik to stew over his phone. Charlotte hasn’t replied since then, but she’s probably busy, and Erik doesn’t want to get her in trouble, _and besides,_ he’s meant to be sleeping. He putters around the kitchen slightly slower than he normally would, ladling rice and curry into tupperware for tomorrow, preparing his coffee thermos for the morning. He spends five minutes brushing his hair, washing his face, and cleaning his teeth before he decides on applying a pore-cleansing strip and staring at his phone for fifteen minutes, waiting on Charlotte to reply.

No such message comes, a clean nose and half an hour later, even when Erik slowly crawls into bed. It’s almost midnight. He has to be up in six hours. He flicks open the thread, looks at Charlotte’s selfie once more and finds comfort in the speedy pace of his heartbeat, and sends another text.

 **[23:56]  
** _< < Good night, Charlotte. Sweet dreams _

 

His alarm is jarring through the silence of the morning, and it cuts through the dark and whatever dream he’d had. It scurries away from him as sleep does, leaving wisps of pink, and orange hair and long pretty nails.

He received a message at a bit past two am. Charlotte sent him another picture.

Her face is partially obscured by her hand, but Erik can see her pout through her fingers. Her eyes are shut, brows droopy. _I’m so ready for sleep._ Erik glances at the right side of the bed. He wonders how she’d look curled amongst his cotton pillows and beneath his heavy duvet.

Swinging out of bed and padding out into the kitchen Erik wonders if he even needs the coffee. He feels more awake than he has in months.

He dresses himself in slacks and a button up and pulls on his peacoat and scarf. Fixing each article of clothing fills him with a new sense of purpose, sort of like what Emma gets from her strange self-care rituals but… better. He grabs his bag, laptop and lunch. He’s only ever really taken selfies with Emma around, because when it’s just him it tends to turn out something all teeth and wrinkles. But he holds his phone up a little, tugs his mouth up in a half smile and tries a peace sign. It’s cuter when Charlotte does it.

He sends it anyway. _I’m so ready for a week of shrieking teenagers._ In the car his phone buzzes against the console hole, where it’s plugged into the aux. Erik reads the message and walks up to the staff room, and nearly falls flat on his face in the middle of the foggy courtyard.

 **[08:25]  
**_> >_  _My handsome man_ _  
>> Guess what, I got Friday off working. You have to come dance with me the whole night  
__> > So at least you’ll get to see me at the end of it, Daddy _

 

Most days it’s easy enough to forget his phone on his desk throughout his lessons, but today he can’t seem to part with it. When his handful of seniors slug into the room he leaves them to their textbooks and their speech practice, and sits behind his laptop. He hides his phone behind the screen, and scrolls through Charlotte’s messages. _Gotta go shopping soon, can’t live off my sister forever_ and _Why is makeup so expensive :(_ and _this lipstick or this one?_. Here she’s sent two pictures, of two swatches, one brown, the other a less-brown.

_< < The lighter one, it’d go well with your light brown-- _

Erik pauses. With Charlotte’s coppery wig. Does she know _he_ knows? She must, but… But. He backpedals. _With your pretty eyes._

“Sir?”

Erik drops his phone, and it clatters against the plastic keyboard jarringly.

Kurt Wagner shifts from foot to sneakered foot. “Sorry, Sir, I was just wondering…”

“Yes,” croaks Erik, standing abruptly and soldiering over to the book cupboard. “I have the Background German worksheets. I read over them. For your final you’ll need to write a short essay in German on cultural differences, I think, but we can start drafting that…”

 _Charlotte,_ Erik thinks. _Charlotte Charlotte Charlotte._

 

She says goodnight in the evening. He says good morning as he brushes his teeth. She sometimes wakes up just as he gets to school and will send him something sleepy and cute along the lines of _how are you alive_ and _since you’re up bring me coffee x._

It surprises him just how easily Charlotte becomes a constant in his day. They’ve only met twice, but talking to her here comes as readily as talking with Emma. They flirt, and they chat about the day and what they’re doing, and they flirt some more. She asks him which lipstick to wear, and he’ll say the soft pink or the dark red and end it with a compliment, and then he’ll ask her if he should wear the polo or the button up for school the next day and she’ll say the polo with that navy cardigan, and end it with a _daddy._

One time she sends him a photo of her makeup collection -- all tubes of lipstick and palettes of eyeshadow -- and in the corner of it he spies the curls of her auburn wig on a stand on a desk. He doesn’t point it out but he can’t help wondering if Charlotte -- who is always so meticulous with her photos --  had let him see it intentionally. Is it meant to be a clue? Or was it an accident, and now she’s fretting in her room frantically thinking up ways to diffuse if he brings it up?

Erik doesn’t mention it. Instead he sends, _I swear I can see the exact same three shades of pink there. But I’m sure they all look different and lovely on you._  

 

On Tuesday Erik drives across town for dinner with his parents, and when he tells Charlotte this she seems distant, sober. She says, _Aww, have fun!_ and doesn’t message him again til it’s late and he’s about to have his shower.

Edie had told him he’d looked brighter, less gaunt, and joked about him meeting someone. Now, even though he’s stripped down to his socks, the moment Erik hears his phone chirp from his bedroom he thinks that his mother is right. At simply the thought of Charlotte he feels… better. He feels fixed.

He just hadn’t realised how addicting Charlotte would become.

He thumbs into her message with a well practised haste. 

 **[22:34]  
** _> > Sorry, I’m just not very good with parents. Especially mine. But I’m sure yours are lovely and you had a great time :) Need an outfit?x_

Erik bites his lip. She covers it with what he knows but Erik thinks that he’s just seen a glimpse of what’s behind Charlotte. He wants to know more, and he wants to protect her.

 _< < I completely understand. I hope you’ve had a lovely evening.  
_ _< < If you let me pick out my own wardrobe I would -- as I have in the past -- simply wear a different coloured grey turtleneck every day. Please. _

 

It happens after the staff meeting on Wednesday morning.

“Erik!”

Emma looks up at him sympathetically, before scurrying out with her iPod dock beneath her arm.

“Erik, wait,” calls Kitty, pushing past Jean to get to where he is with one foot out the doorway. With a resigned sigh he falls back. Jean throws him a look. “So…”

“I have to get to class, Kitty,” he mumbles, squeezing the laptop under his arm. But he knows she won’t let him go til she’s said her piece.

“I know, I know,” she hurries, grabbing his arm. “But listen, I still feel bad about that other Friday, and I wanted to make it up to you, right?”

She shifts awkwardly and looks down at her wellington boots. When she realises Erik is waiting she looks back up. “And I know this really nice guy I think you’d really like. He’s only a bit younger than you, super cute, super smart.”

“Your housemate’s brother?” Erik guesses. His throat feels full and tight.

“Yeah, see!” She squeezes his arm. “What do you say about something on Saturday? Maybe brunch, everyone loves brunch. I’ll invite Emma, and there will be me and Raven, and I’ll invite the guy, too. So you won’t be alone, it’d be a little group date. And if you don’t hit it off it’s alright, it won’t get awkward.”

 _Charlotte,_ Erik thinks. _Charlotte Charlotte Charlotte._

Would it be cheating?They aren’t together. But they could be. They might be.

They won’t be if Erik goes on Saturday. The guilt would be too unforgiving for Erik to let them become something.

“Thanks, Katherine, but I… I might have to pass.” Her eyes droop. “I know you want to do this for me but--”

But what?He’s found someone?

“It’s okay, Erik,” Kitty says. She pulls back and Erik feels cold and guilty and alone. “Just let me know if you change your mind, okay?” She winks, and turns and starts down the hall to the CA block.

As he starts up to the English block he pulls out his phone, and texts one-handed.

 **[09:02]  
** _< < What do you do when someone asks you somewhere and to say no makes you feel guilty, but to say yes would make you feel guiltier? _

Charlotte replies just before the recess bell. Erik sits on his desk in the empty classroom and opens the message.

 **[10:58]  
** _> > Know what you mean. I’m in a similar situation /: We can just stew in our guilt together _

_< < At least we have each other. Plans for today? _

 

Charlotte goes to tutoring just after Erik gets home, but he doesn’t mind her absence too much. It allows him time to think about what he’s going to do come Saturday. He sweeps and mops the floors, and he sets his dishwasher, and hangs out his laundry on the clothes horse on the living room. All methodical and routine, but it brings him little comfort, and little clarity to his mind.

He messages Emma asking her to come around with the incentive of lentil curry cakes, but he gets no reply. He wants to be angry with her for getting him into this mess, for dragging him along to Hellfire, but… he isn’t, and he can’t be. He’s just tired.

Erik’s good at pushing people away -- and it’s not as if he’s ever coveted the friendship of Kitty Pryde -- but he remembers the way she squealed and hugged him at the club, how she squeezed his arm today after the meeting, and he sighs. Then he droops into the kitchen to get a beer.

After seven, his phone vibrates. It’s squished between the couch cushion and his thigh. Erik spends a cumbersome few moments extracting it.

It’s Charlotte, and she’s written _my lover_ and before his speeding heart and sluggish mind can get the best of him Erik unlocks his phone. She’s attached an image of her bed, duvet rumpled, pillows in an upside-down L shape. Her lover. He grunts. He wonders if she cuddles her pillows when she sleeps.

Before he can think it through, he thumbs out a message.

_< < I thought that was my job_

He watches the screen. She starts to type, but then the little dots settle and stop and disappear. He doesn’t let himself regret the message.

 _> > How comfortable is it to sleep on you? ;)_  
  
_< < You should sleep with me and find out _

No reply comes for several seconds. As Erik watches, his heart pounding, the typing bubble pops up, then disappears, then pops up again. Then stops again. It goes on, and on and on, and a trickle of regret begins to snake into his chest. And as the typing bubble disappears yet _again_ , Erik purses his lips. _Shit_ , he thinks groggily. It was too much, it--

But then a message finally comes, and it jars him out of his spiral of regret.

 _> > You’re being forward tonight, Daddy._ 

It’s flirty but Erik’s still nervous. It’s not a rejection, but her message still somehow feels like a stab between his ribs.

_< < Sorry I shouldn’t have said that_

Her reply comes much quicker this time. 

 _> > No, I like forward  
_ _> > You should be forward with me more often_

He swallows.

All right, then. He will be.

His fingers shake as he types. _Go out with me._ Erik’s thumb hovers above send. Every second he waits is another chip off his crumbling confidence. He should just send it, and be rejected, and then tell Kitty he’ll come on Saturday.

Or... Or he won’t be rejected. And he won’t need Saturday. Just Friday night and a dancefloor and Charlotte.

The front door bangs against the wall. “Erik Lehsnherr,” he hears Emma yell. It echoes down the hall. “I can feel your mind from a block away. Take a Xanax or cut it out.”

Heart in his throat he backspaces, and locks his phone, and lets it clatter to the coffee table as he stands to greet Emma. He needn’t really, for she storms into the living room a buzz of activity, her coat flapping around her, unwinding her white cashmere scarf. She drops her spare key on the coffee table.

“Now,” she begins, pushing him down to sit as she flutters into the kitchen. He hears the kettle being clicked on. He feels the coil heating. “What’s wrong?”

“You were right about Kitty. She asked me to some group date today.”

He feels a spoon in a mug, hears the rustle of tea bags. “What did you say?”

“No, of course,” he scoffs. “It didn’t feel right.”

Emma comes back to clear away the bear bottles. They clink together in the recycling. “Because of Charlotte?”

Erik licks his dry lips, and stares at his phone. “Because of Charlottle.”

“Well,” says Emma setting the tea. “She’s an adult. You have a mutual interest in each other. You should ask her out.”

“I know. But I feel even guiltier for seeing her as a choice in the first place. There shouldn’t be one.”

When Erik sobers up they make lentil cakes, and Emma complains he really needs to go shopping, stays til late in the evening. Though after she leaves -- with a tupperware of cakes in hand -- it all comes back, and nothing has changed.

He showers, and he checks his phone, and he has no new messages from Charlotte.

_< < I’m sorry. My friend came over for dinner. _

Her response is almost immediate. Erik imagines her sitting by her phone, and he feels worse.

 _> > That’s quite alright, I hope you had a nice evening _  
  
<< We did. I’m sorry about before  
  
He doesn’t want to admit drunkenness. It seems almost shameful.

He doesn’t need to, though.

_> > Don’t be, I’ve handled my fair share of drunk texts. What were you drinking?? I have my RSA, I have to take care of you  
_

Smiling, Erik pulls himself beneath the covers, and flicks his light off and lamp on with a wave of his fingers.

_< < Beer. Good beer. German beer. Is this when we have our first fight?_

_> > I’m heaving. Why would you do that to yourself.  
_ _> > Too many good souls have lost their palette’s too this ‘good german beer’ you boast about _

_< < I can’t believe I’m being attacked like this. Beer is good, everyone loves beer_

_> > You must still be drunk, that’s what I’m gonna chalk it down to. No one in their right mind likes bear  
_ _> > **beer  
_ _> > Well, I like bears ;) _

_< < I think /you’re the drunk one now_

_> > Maybe so, alcoholism runs in my family. But in all seriousness, are you all right? Responsible service of alcohol and all _

He feels alright now. He feels alright whenever he’s in his and Charlotte’s little bubble.

_< < I wasn’t before, but talking to you has helped _

Charlotte pauses at the admission. Then another message comes through.

 _> > Then I’m glad I could help. But please, don’t drink when you’re upset_  
>> Especially if it’s guilty drinking!!  
  
<< How are you handling your situation? Want to compare?

_> > I’m handling it by talking to you, and I’d very much love to keep talking to you but you have school in the morning! _

_< < Don’t remind me. It takes my co-worker at least ten minutes to press three buttons on the coffee machine in the staff room  
  
>> I know someone like that, drives me up the wall  
_ _> > Better not send you mental, I need you for Friday _

Erik grins. This is so easy. Talking with Charlotte with so easy.

It was never a choice.

Kitty will understand.

_< < Then you’ll have me for Friday. Good night, Charlotte x _

 

On Thursday, it rains.

The kind of perpetual rain that hankers over the green-yellow-green patchwork fields outside Dusseldorf’s buildings and towers, that comes from low clouds heavy with drizzle that seep down the mountain ranges. Rain that coats Berlin’s cobblestoned streets and sluices through the grooves, running like grey paint. It’s a kind of cold wet weight that Erik hated as a child, when endless grey would cling to the northern winter for days and weeks; he remembers being surprised at sunlight when the grey stopped.

From his classroom window Erik watches the world get drowned, listens to it pelt the glass. It sounds like it’s shattering with every billow.

Erik’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he smiles.

 

He isn’t on wet weather duty today, so at recess he slinks into the staff common room and edges to the fridge. Jean and Scott are huddled in the corner between the noticeboard and a faux-leather loveseat, whispering and throwing him looks. Erik rolls his eyes, grapples for his tupperware, rights the plastic bottle of seltzer leaning on it. Their hushed conversation is easy enough to ignore, especially when Kitty bounds into the room and pounces to the sink.

She drops into it about three terms’ worth of mugs. Someare stained green. He doesn’t ask, but he turns to her anyway.

“Katherine,” Erik starts, distracting himself by punching in the time on the microwave. He really wants to convince Ororo they need one for the faculty staffroom, that it won’t be like last time. “About Saturday…”

She turns to him with hopeful, wide eyes. There’s a muesli bar stuffed in her mouth. Flecks of nut and grain spray from her mouth like shrapnel when she tries a very enthused, “Yeth?!”

Erik swallows. The microwave whirs, his patties fizzle. “I just wanted to tell you the reason I said no was because I’ve already met someone.”

The microwave dings jarringly in the silence. Jean and Scott are whispering so intensely they sound like tears in lycra. Erik only knows what that sounds like because of a very unfortunate time involving Logan Howlett and the in-school _Zumba_ class Erik had been supervising.

“You meth sum’un?” says Kitty incredulously. Erik hears the “But who?!” she refrains from saying.

He hears the “But who would want _him_?” from the corner, from the way Kitty’s frowning-- but before he can flush, or stutter, or silently leave, he rubs his palm across his pocket; across the rectangular weight there.

“Yes, I met someone.” He cocks his chin, levels a glance at Jean. “At the bar, actually.”

“Oh, Erik.” Kitty swallows. She licks the sticky honey from her teeth. “That’s really wonderful. I’m really happy, then.”

She stuffs the rest of the bar into her mauw, but Erik smiles. “So am I."

 

Thursday late night shopping has left Erik’s favourite Aldi store broken and empty. Employees slink and slug around, replenishing the ransacked shelves, and Erik thinks he hears Kurt Wagner’s enthused chittering over the sound of his very rattley, very empty shopping cart. 

There’s only a few surviving packets of pasta. Penne. No fucking wonder. Erik hates penne.

He hears a suck of air from the display table to his left. Aldi is all tables, a bread rack, and a fenced off alcohol nook that’s cheap enough for Erik to forgive the clear vantage shot Kurt has of him. “Oh, hello sir!” he yells, waving. Erik nods to the table between them, showcasing a grand total of three boxes of marzipan from the Little Italy special that was on two weeks ago.

“Rough night?”

Kurt shrugs, and wheels his patchy yellow jack trolley down the aisle. “Thursdays are always busy. I think the FoodFriends would still be open.”

Erik sighs his defeat, but he can’t begrudge Aldi’s wonderful affordability and quality of off-brand products.

He would have made if earlier if he hadn’t been texting Charlotte.

“Would you like me to to take your trolley back, sir?” Kurt asks.

Walking back to his car he wants to pull out his phone and message Charlotte. _I’m cheating on Aldi with FoodFriends_ or _This is the worst day of my life._ Something silly, but he wants to share everything - even the silly things - with her. He wants to take Charlotte to Aldis at eight p.m., and buy all the penne pasta, and all the cheap vodka, and laugh with her and push her in his trolley around the empty parking lot like kids would.

He waves his fingers, and his car clicks open. Erik settles in, and pulls out and turns left towards the small grocery a few streets up. Idly, Erik wonders where Charlotte shops, what she’d buy, what she eats. She said her sister feeds her mostly, Erik wonders if she cooks; but then he remembers she’s English, and that settles that.

Erik doesn’t come to FoodFriends, with its obnoxious name and American heritage and barbaric prices, but he swallows and steps past the automatic doors and takes a trolley. It’s small, but it doesn’t rattle. Erik sniffs. There’s a stack of wicker baskets next to it, shielding a depressed yukka.

A dark-skinned girl with a labret piercing and pink hair smiles at him and he tries a smile back, edging down an aisle, peering down another. He can feel the alloy of another trolley a few aisles away but otherwise Erik doesn’t see anyone else around, and that’s…. a pro, rather than a con. There’s also an entire section dedicated to twenty different types of lentil. “Holy shit,” Erik whispers to himself.

He’s about to take a photo for Emma when a message comes in, he feels the magnetic pop around his phone, smells iron. His phone vibrates viciously in his palm. His heart swells and flutters.

 **[20:13]  
**_> > I’m really excited for tomorrow night_  
>> I’ve my outfit all planned out  
>> I hope you’ll like it

He thinks about Charlotte’s muscled thighs stretching something tight and short, circled with a garter, strapped to stockings. Erik bites his lip, and wonders what her thighs taste like.  
  
<< _I know that I will_  
<< _I like you no matter what you’re wearing_

Erik stuffs his phone back in his pocket and grabs a neat little baggie of red lentils, leans against the cart and he continues on. Tomorrow. He’s going dancing tomorrow. He’ll wear his jeans, he decides, and he thinks he has a nice button up somewhere in his closet. Black and pressed, and it’ll pair nicely with his brogues, maybe his leather jacket.

Erik’s so busy thinking that when he rounds the corner he doesn’t see the person already tucked against a shelf there, and their trolleys clash and clatter. The metal grazes, and Erik feels it like it’s against his skin, grimacing against the sound of the scrape. He spits a quiet curse, and looks up, apology already on his lips.

But the other person is quicker. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” they stop to swallow, and Erik looks up, and they look up, and their eyes are deep, but their voice is deeper.

“Oh,” says Charlotte. Except now, her hair is brown and curly, and short to her ears. Her eyes are blue but they’re small without liner and lashes, her cheeks are slightly blemished and flushed from the cold and he can tell without foundation. Her chin is bigger without contour. 

It’s Charlotte, except now she has shadowy stubble under her jaw, and no choker over her Adam’s apple.

It’s Charlotte, except now she’s in slacks and a cardigan, and her nails are bitten down and squared. Her knuckles are white on the trolley. Her hands are shaking, and she’s holding her phone.

It’s Charlotte, but Erik knows he isn’t supposed to be seeing her like this. The bobble pops. Charlotte isn’t real, because Charlotte doesn’t go shopping. Charlotte lives at Hellfire, behind the bar, in Erik’s bed and mind when it’s dark and quiet, and in the string of texts threading his phone to the phone of the man trembling in front of him.

It’s the phone Charlotte used to take photos of herself, to send to him. It’s the phone on which Charlotte wrote daddy, and meant it differently, and thought of him the way no one else would while doing it.

Erik can see the screen. _I hope you like it. I like you no matter what you’re wearing._ In the text box is a scramble of little black letters, not yet ready to be sent. Erik clears his throat.

“Erik,” the man whispers slowly and wetly, and then he lets go of his trolley, and claps a hand over his mouth to trap his deep voice, and he takes a step back.

Erik steps with him. He has to say _it’s okay,_ or _Charlotte it’s just me,_ but the words don’t work. They stick to his mouth like black oil, and they clog his throat and make it almost impossible to breathe.

“I’m sorry,” whispers Charlotte between her fingers, and then she turns, and then she runs.

* * *

 


	4. Brunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much everyone for reading, commenting, kudosing, and bookmarking!! I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I loved writing it :3 Big thank you to Thacmis for pushing me, and for taking this and making it shiny. 
> 
> Some cool pop tunes that are super clubby and fun! [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUcXQ--yGWQ) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUGOLv_rlrE) and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEOyePhElr4) :3

Charlotte doesn’t message him to say goodnight. She doesn’t message him to say good morning.

Hunkered beneath his umbrella Erik shunts through the drizzle, into the school. He slams his laptop case down onto his desk, making Ororo jump and chide him but he only grunts in response. He barks at his second years, and having never lost his temper before they all freeze in terrified shock. And then it’s lunch, and wrapped in his high-vis vest he trudges out to the damp courtyard, beneath the thinning clouds, but Charlotte still hasn’t messaged him.

When he’d arrived home last night a small part of him was convinced that Charlotte would have messaged him, as if nothing had changed. As he wrote up his lesson plans he’d waited, paying care to the swells of magnetism coming from his phone. Part of him believed that he’d not seen her at the grocery, that it had been someone else. But as he showered, no message came, and as he crawled into bed, she hadn’t said a word.

He’d thumbed out a text to her anyway. _I don’t want you to worry about what happened at the shops. I like you however you present yourself, no matter your gender._

But Erik had stared at it so hard and re-written it so many times that by the time he pressed send it was too late. It had to have been too late, because Charlotte never replied. Because she never even opened the message.

Kids run past him, chasing handballs, giggling in groups. The sun tips the late morning to early afternoon, and makes a shadow from the basketball hoop. Erik doesn’t move as it cuts through him.

 

“So,” begins Emma, “Why aren’t you excited for tonight? You’ve been like my own personal sun all week.”

She’s looking up at him from between her legs on the floor, but she’s still intimidating, like this. Her seniors are already warmed up and practicing out on the rubber floor, two crouched by Emma's iPod dock. Erik looks from them, to Emma, then down to his socked feet.

He should be marking or working down at the English staffroom but he doesn’t want to spend so much time alone. The fact he’s here probably tells Emma all that she needs to know.

He watches her stretch. “I saw Charlotte last night.”

“Oh?” Emma bends in half and pulls her socked toes. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It would be. But she wasn’t _Charlotte._ She was dressed as a man, and I don’t think I was... meant to see her like that yet.”

Emma hums. “She isn’t talking to you?”

“Not since before I saw her.”

Emma unfolds herself and stands upright. She takes his arms and squeezes. “You have to let her come back. As a man, as a woman, however she wants you to see her. You just have to wait it out. And if she doesn’t come back, then that’s how it is, and you just have to let her go.”

 

He doesn’t catch Kitty in the common room at lunch, but he isn’t sure he wants to face her for this anyway. Trudging to his car at the end of the day, the cold sun splitting through the stringy grey clouds, Erik pulls out his phone. Seeing Charlotte’s name makes him feel sick, and sad, and like lying down on the gravel path and letting the straggling students trample him. So he clicks to Katherine. And he types, and tries not to think about it too hard.

 **[15:50]  
** _< < Is it too late for that brunch tomorrow? _

Kitty has replied by the time he gets into his car. No take backs, now.

_> > Woo hoo!! I’ll wrangle the gang! 10:30 at that cafe on Stark St????  
>> Oh and Are you going out tonight? Can you do pres? _

 

Despite the chill clinging to the air and stealing Erik’s breath, the Hellfire Club is more alive than he’s ever seen it, and he’s only standing outside in the queue. Kitty, when drunk, is always clingy, but drunk Kitty when faced with Irene Adler is a fucking octopus. She holds Irene around the waist as if she’s drowning. Erik would smirk, but he’s too depressed; and too busy scanning the queue around them.

He doesn’t see Charlotte. He’s not even surprised.

Behind him stands Bobby Drake from HSIE, and even though he has a timid young girl with a fascinating white streak through her hair on his arm -- Anna-Marie, Erik remembers from pre-drinks -- he can’t stop looking at Erik. In turn it makes Erik feel prickly. He understands that Bobby is _new_ to this, but Erik won’t sleep with a co-worker. 

“Even if he’s in a dress?” leers Emma, and she pushes herself into Erik’s arms. He stiffens, and holds her loosely.

Emma whines and carries on. “Oh, I’m sorry. I think the Malibu is getting to me. It isn’t even summer. Malibu doesn’t make it feel like summer. It makes everything feel wobbly.”

“I think most alcohol will do that, Em.”

Emma pouts up at him. “She didn’t message you back, did she?”

Erik doesn’t reply. Neither does Emma. She just rests her cheek against his chest, and sighs for him.

Their group shunts up a few paces. Erik looks around for any sign of Charlotte, but he doesn’t know what she’s wearing tonight. He doesn’t know which wig, which dress, who her friends are -- he doesn’t even know if she’s here.

Erik tries to reason with himself that at least he has tomorrow. He has a brunch. Funny, because yesterday he’d been counting on his tomorrows too.

He pays for Emma’s entry, and they regroup inside just shy of the dancefloor and the courtyard. Someone decides on dancing, and someone else squeals excitedly ( _Kitty_ ) and Emma squeezes his arm to bring him back. He gives the courtyard a final glance before looking down at her.

“You wanna come, or are you going to take a walk?”

They got here late, and it’s coming up to midnight, so maybe Charlotte’s already left. But Erik nods. “I’m going to walk. Do you have your suppressants?”

Emma shakes her clutch at him, and rubs his arm. “She really meant a lot to you Erik. That isn’t a bad thing. I think you mean a lot to her, too.”

Erik watches her loop herself between Bobby and Anne-Marie. He can imagine her saying, “Now, lets find you a man,” through a wicked grin. They disappear quickly into the writhing dancefloor. Erik turns, and heads inside to the bar.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised that Charlotte isn’t there, but he is, and the bar itself looks like it’s lost something. People crowd it, vying to get to the front, a swarm, but Erik can still see the workers running around frantically on the other side. Two of them he doesn’t recognise but there’s one he does: Angel. His wings are strapped down once more but he moves with practiced ease, edging around the two other men to lean against the bar and chat with someone. Erik starts to push his way to the front.

Once there Erik realises two things. The first is that Angel -- with his glares and huffs and the way he acts like he’d rather be anywhere but here -- is blushing. The second is that the person he’s blushing at is Kurt Wagner.

It’s then that they all realise each other.

“Oh,” squawks Kurt. “Oh, hello… sir.”

Erik stares down at him in horror. “Hello, Kurt.” He tries to swallow the awkward feeling. It doesn’t go away. “How… How are you?”

Kurt frowns. Erik notices that he’s holding Angel’s hand on the bar. Oh. “Good, and I-- I’m eighteen, sir.”

Erik nods stiffly. Right. “That’s good, then.”

Kurt shifts, and lets go of Angel’s hand so suddenly it brings a whole new wave of awkwardness down on them. “I didn’t know you were gay,” Kurt blurts, and at the same time Angel clears his throat and brings back one of those glares.

“Can I get you a drink?” Angel all-but growls.

Erik shakes his head. He can’t imagine how this could get any more awkward, so he soldiers on. “Is Charlotte here tonight?”

Angel frowns. He squares up.“No, she got it off. Why?”

Erik rolls his eyes. “I meant have you seen her here at all? With her friends? I’m meant to be-” Erik glances down at Kurt. “I’m meant to be meeting her.”

It takes a few moments of wary side-eying before Angel finally nods off beyond Erik’s shoulder. It’s such a small movement but Erik feels it like a punch to his gut.

He has to shoulder through the crowd before he can see anything, but he follows where Angel pointed to like it’s a lifeline. There are a dozen or so people teetering around in front of the bathrooms, and Erik looks hurriedly, scans every face he can see.

A man with too much hair and not enough clothing stands with his back to Erik, but Erik can tell his arms are folded from the way his ridiculously large biceps bulge. No.He knows those arms, and that shoulder width, and what that ass looks like even if it’s currently clad in shiny latex hotpants.

He saw it through split lycra.

_No._

Erik’s frozen in spot. He can’t move. It feels like one of those terrible nightmares. Someone calls out behind him, and then that someone walks past him, in jeans and a twink singlet and a visor. Erik can’t move as the man in front of him, wearing only combat boots and black latex booty shorts and a studded bondage harness, starts to turn to the side.

Erik knows that scowl. He knows those muttonchops.

He watches in horror as Scott Summers leans up and presses a fat kiss on Logan Howlett’s overgrown mauw before pressing a beer into his hand. He _giggles._ He loops his arm with Logan’s and sighs contentedly, and Erik feels like if he had to choose between watching a murder and watching _this_ he’d be the one enthusiastically quartering the body.

He has to go. He has to sneak away. And then grab Emma and the others and _leave very quickly_ because there’s something about learning that his coworkers are in each others pants while one of them may as well have the bear pride flag tattooed across his veiny, broad forehead that doesn’t sit well with Erik.

Just as Erik turns however someone grabs his arm, and says a very loud, very obvious, “Sir!”

Ten people wearing at least three articles of black leather all turn at once -- which is awkward to say the least -- including Logan, and including Scott. They look at Erik. Erik looks at Kurt. Kurt looks at him. Kurt Wagner then looks at his PE teachers, and they both stare inhorror right back at him.

It’s then that the neon-flecked bathroom door that they all stand in front of swings open, and Erik realises sickly that they were _waiting._ Jean Grey steps out first, in a black and dark green corset and black pants. She freezes when she sees Erik. She freezes so suddenly that the girl behind her walks straight into her back, and emits a very startled, very gruff, “Oh, bloody hell, Jean.”

Once again Erik’s heart stops but for a completely different reason. He doesn’t care that his student is hanging off his arm in the middle of a gay club. He doesn’t care that in front of him are his three colleagues who are all in various degrees of sluttiness and undress. The club slowly starts to move around them, and come back to life, but Erik hardly notices.

Charlotte is staring at him. Her cheeks are steadily filling with colour. She takes a step back, but she hits the door; Erik only then realises that he’s taken a step forward.

“Charlotte-” Erik licks his lips. He takes another step forward and pulls out of Kurt’s grip. “Don’t run away again, Charlotte. Please.”

She looks like a frightened deer. A frightened deer in a short white dress that’s hugging all her muscles in the most delicious way-- no, fuck, he has to focus-- “Please, Charlotte.”

Logan cuts in front of him and growls. “Back off, Lehnsherr." Erik glares and steps around him, shouldering past Scott.

She’s standing behind Jean but Erik can still see her dress. It’s white and short, off the shoulder, with a white fan of ruffles around her hips, and a split across her belly that lets him see the muscle there. She hides her natural curls beneath a chin-length bobbed wig, her lips are glossy and wet. Charlotte’s eyes, however, are puffy, and her eyeshadow is smudged, as if she’s been crying.

Jean takes her hand and glares at Erik like she’s trying to kill him. Erik clears his throat. “Can I buy you a drink?” He looks at Charlotte, and he sees a boy in a cardigan shivering under his gaze. “Can we talk?”

“Move along, Erik,” grunts Logan, “If you’re just going to let him down you needn’t say anything.”

Erik scoffs. “What makes you think I’d let her--” Oh. He looks back at Charlotte. She has a white ascot tied around her throat. She won’t look at him. “Charlotte, I don’t want to stop talking to you. I don’t want you to end this. I really--”

Scott, Logan and Jean are all staring at him like he’s got an extra head, but Erik only watches Charlotte. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “I really, _really_ like you Charlotte. No matter how you present. No matter which gender you prefer.”

She starts to blush but Scott pulls him away, and while Erik can’t see his eyes he can feel him glaring. “Listen, just drop it, alright Erik? He doesn’t want you to hurt him more than you al--”

“Scott,” interrupts Charlotte. Her jaw is clenched tight and her eyes glisten. “It’s okay.”

She steps around Jean, and nods like she’s convincing herself. “Let’s… Let’s get a drink.”

She takes his hand, and her acrylics drag on his palm, and Erik shivers all the way down to his feet.

She clears her throat, but her voice is still croaky, and deeper than usual. “Jean I’ll… message you later, alright?”

Erik feels the three of them staring as Charlotte leads him to the bar, but he shakes it off, and instead focuses on the way Charlotte’s hand squeezes his. Kurt is back at the bar, in Angel’s ear, but the moment Angel spies Charlotte he’s pushing away and edging over to her.

“What-” Erik begins to say, but Angel brings out two double blacks and slides them across. Charlotte takes hers with a little black straw.

As she weaves them through the crowd Erik can’t help but let his eyes rove over her. Her shoulders are broad are dusted with pale freckles, and Erik wants to kiss every one. The white cocktail dress hugs her waist and the swell of her backside, and Erik itches to pull his arms around her, to run flat palms up her sides and squeeze and kiss her.

Charlotte makes a noise like a squeak and a moan in front of him. He remembers she’s a telepath.

“I’m sorry--”

Charlotte shakes her head, but doesn’t look at up him.

She leads them outside to the courtyard, but takes him up a small pathway along the side that leads up to a quaint landing of low tables. A partition of foliage shields them from below, where everyone is dancing and kissing and touching, and pink and purple lights stream through it to give the bosky court a faraway feeling. The music still reaches them here but it’s dulled, so Erik can hear Charlotte’s stilettos clinking against the stone. They’re alone. She lets him go, and brushes off a table, and settles down on it.

Her lips are pink and glittery and full, and they work the straw with something that makes Erik’s stomach tight. He doesn’t realise he’s staring until she licks them.

It’s awkward as he sits down beside her in stifled, muffled EDM-filled silence. Part of him wants to let her speak first, to take it slow, but another part of him wants to gush and yell and beg, and say _it’s okay Charlotte, it’s alright, you’re all right._

“My name isn’t Charlotte.”

Erik nods slowly, watching Charlotte watch her shoes.

She laughs when he doesn’t say anything, but it’s empty and sad and self-derogatory bitter and cold and derogatory. “Don’t you want to know what my real name is?”

“Only if that’s the name _you_ want me to know,” Erik shoots back.

Charlotte clicks her tongue, takes a sip. “I feel like I’ve already messed this up and it’s not even begun,” she says softly. 

“Nothing’s messed up at all, Charlotte.” He nudges her knee with his, presses in closer.

“No, but I--” Her voice cracks, deepens. She leans into him, too. “You called me pretty, and no one’s ever called me pretty before. You looked at me like no one else has ever looked at me before. And now that’s all going to stop because \- because I lied.”Charlotte’s voice breaks. She doesn't look up.

Despite himself Erik smiles. His fingers find themselves in the soft, delicately curled edge of Charlotte’s wig. She stills, and he strokes gently. “What did you lie about, Charlotte?”

She swallows. Erik watches her Adam’s apple hungrily. He wants to bite the silk of her ascot. “My name is Charles.”

Erik’s fingers do not still, he doesn’t lose his smile. Charlotte’s blushing so hard he can see it even in the dim, and her eyes look wet and red. Her fingers are shaking, digging into her thigh, making the white skirt crinkle.

“Is that what you’d like me to call you?”

Her shoulders tremble. Erik tucks a tress behind her ear. She sucks a wobbly breath.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispers wetly. Erik frowns. “Why are you being so nice?”

“Because, I--” he doesn’t love her. Not yet. But he wants to. “Because I’m probably going to fall in love with you.”

A tang of shock and hope fills the air, before it dissolves into incredulous disbelief, and she laughs emptily and pulls away.Her cheeks are blotchy and shimmer in the purple light. When she speaks her voice has lost the bubble, the crystal edge, and it’s deep and gritty and masculine. “Love me? How could you love me? I’m thick-voiced and rough-cheeked and broad and nothing like the woman I pretend to be.”

“Charlotte,” Erik says slowly. “I said it doesn’t matter--”

“ _Erik_ ,” she cuts him off with a sob, and it all comes loose. “You don’t even know _me_ , Erik. And it’s all my fault, because I let myself fall, because you called me pretty, and you made me feel pretty, and I’ve never been Charlotte this often, because no one ever loves Charlotte-”

She cuts herself off, takes a moment to gather her breaths and her calm. Erik sits silently next to her, giving her the space he knows she needs.

The aluminum can crinkles in her grip. She glares down at her lap. “ _Charlotte_ doesn’t leave the bar, she doesn’t leave my apartment...” Uncontrolled like a spasm, dark, stifling images that do not belong to Erik flash through his mind, of foul words, of rough hands, of accusations. Shee forcibly locks them down with a grimace. Erik swallows, heart aching. Comprehension leaves his mouth dry. “My _friends_ don’t even call me Charlotte, but you-- you were different. Your mind was so bright and you wouldn’t stop _looking_ at me, and not the way everyone  else looks at me, and I thought… I thought I could pretend.” Her teeth are grit tight to keep it all back. Her eyes glisten.

She’s… scared, Erik realizes. He plucks the can from her grip with a wave of his fingers, and rests his free hand gently on her shoulder. She flinches. He thumbs her smooth, freckled skin with something like reverence. “You didn’t trick me if that’s what you’re thinking. Charles, Charlotte; you’re both. You’re the same. You don’t have to hide part of yourself for me to like the other half.”

Charles looses a soft, tight sound and Erik pulls him into his arms. He presses a kiss to the top of Charles’ soft wig, and Charles shudders, and Charles cries. He hiccups, and presses his pretty manicured hand across Erik’s chest. “I’ve had a bit to drink,” he finally murmurs into Erik’s neck, and Erik laughs.

“I forgive you. And for the record, the only thing I wish you’d told me was who your friends are.”

Charles sniffs, and Erik can feel the confused little question mark popping up. “My friends.”

“Your friends, my colleagues.”

Charles quiets suddenly, he pieces it together. “They’re teachers at Hammer Bay Public,” he says flatly.

“Scott is a twink, Logan is a Dom and Jean is a Mistress,” Erik mutters incredulously.

“Oh, no,” laughs Charles, “Jean is the only dominant.”

Oh. Oh okay then.

“Yeah,” Charles laughs, “It’s probably going to be awkward on Monday.”

“Maybe I can drink enough to forget before then.”

Charles laughs, crystal clear and light. The silence that comes is gentle and soft, buffeted by wafts of bass and electric pulses from down below. Erik feels like he’s walked outside after it’s just stopped raining, and everything is fresh and crisp, and ready to grow again.

Charles is looking up at him and smiling quietly, cheeks pink with bashfulness. His eyes are still red, and there’s a little black smudged beneath his bottom lashes and faint tear tracks through his foundation but Erik knows it’s okay now. He rubs his hand over his goosebumped arms. Erik wants to kiss him.

“You’re cold. We should go inside. I still owe you a dance,” he murmurs. His breath ghosts Charles’ lips. Wet, glossy lips.

“We should--” Charles’ eyes flick to Erik’s mouth. He doesn’t look away and his breaths seem to turn shallow. “You can if you want,” he says softly, and Erik is caught by the movement of those lips. “I want you to.”

Charles isn’t talking about going inside, Erik realises, as he pushes up. Oh. He’s going to kiss Charles. Charles’ hand presses over his heart, and he turns into Erik’s chest. His breath tastes like lemon soda and vodka. His lips taste like sugar.

Oh. He’s kissing Charlotte.

She curls fingers around his neck, she scratches lightly just under his hairline, and Erik pulls her close and runs his hands up her sides and moans against her mouth. Charlotte shivers, and she grins, and her tongue is soft against his and her mouth is sweet and warm. Her wig brushes Erik’s cheek, curtains him in as she pushes against him and up, maneuvering to her knees, one either side of Erik’s left thigh.

Charles reaches for Erik’s hands, and tentatively brings them to his breasts. He shudders, in pleasure or in relief or maybe both. Erik’s chest swells with something wonderful and warm.

His chest is delicate and small, soft muscle that taped as it is forms a shallow cleavage and yields beneath Erik’s palms. He isn’t wearing a bralet, for Erik can feel his nipples where he’s thumbing over them. Charles shivers, and keens, and kisses Erik harder, and his stiletto knocks Erik’s knee.

Erik pulls away, and his lips are sticky with gloss. He leans down to lick across Charles’ collarbone, and Charles gasps and shakes.

“What would you like me to call you tonight?” Erik rasps, and one hand slides down, and around, and he squeezes Charles’ backside softly.

Charles sucks in a breath and squeezes Erik’s shoulders. His tummy quivers when Erik brushes his fingers over the slit in his dress. “I-- I’m Charles,” he manages. “I’m always Charles.”

“I know,” murmurs Erik, and he runs his hands up and down Charles’ thighs. Charles in turn wraps his arms around his neck, and pushes Erik’s face down into his bust. He bites Charles’ milky skin and licks the imprint. “But you’re also Charlotte. Would you like to be Charlotte tonight?”

Charles pulls away then to look down at him incredulously, and Erik gets stuck in his eyes. His lashes are so long and downy, and Erik wants to feel them against his cheek. He wants to wake up in the mornings and roll over and watch those eyes. _You’ll do that for me?_ Erik thinks he hears, but no, Charles’ mouth doesn’t move, he’s sure because he's kissing him again. Erik remembers those flashes from before, the memories that weren’t his. He wants to chase away Charles’ insecurity and keep him safe, forever and ever and ever, and he wants Charles to come chase away all the dark parts in him, too, and keep him from getting too cold in the night and in the daylight.

“I want to be Charlotte, tonight, daddy,” whispers Charles. He’s blushing bright red. His eyes look wet, Erik glances down. His white dress is tented just enough to be blatantly obvious, his stockinged thighs are split apart and trembling. He pulls on the dress, tries to flatten the bulge, whimpers when Erik slides his hand up his thigh.

Erik’s drunk on this. It’s dangerous. He loves it. “Good girl,” he murmurs before leaning up and licking into Charlotte’s mouth. Her gasp is shuddering and wet.

They kiss messily, but Erik doesn’t care. He doesn’t doubt his mouth is stained and smudged with pink, for when he pulls back Charlotte’s lipgloss is smeared all over her mouth. Erik reaches up and thumbs through it, and she flushes healthily. “You didn’t even open my text last night,” he murmurs. He doesn’t know why he says it. But he isn’t angry.

“I was too scared. You wrote ‘I don’t want you to’ and I was terrified you’d say, ‘message me again’ or ‘I don’t want you to go to the club.’ If I saw that rejection, I don’t think--” Charlotte swallows thickly. Erik squeezes her side. “I just really, really like you, Erik.”

It’s easy to lean up and kiss her. It’s so easy. “I really, really like you too. And I want you to message me, every day, and I want to go dancing with you any chance I can.”

“Then let’s go dance,” Charlotte breathes, and she reaches for their forgotten drinks, and takes a sip of Erik’s before kissing him again.

 

Erik’s drunk. Erik’s gotten very, very drunk. Charlotte’s drunk too, and she’s very, very warm, and her mouth is very, very kissable, and hands are very, very close to his pants. They’re wedged against the wall and the elevated DJ booth, a hundred messy sweaty bodies around them but all Erik can focus on is the way Charlotte’s kissing him. The music is so deafening all Erik can hear is his heartbeat, and the little wet noises Charlotte makes, and the little moans she breathes into his mouth. _Charlotte_ , he thinks, _Charlotte, Charlotte._

She pulls him close by his waist and grins against his mouth, and she touches him freely, and moves against him freely. Charlotte turns, and Erik, stunned, watches her move, swallows as she presses back onto him. His hands find her hips, she reaches up and pulls him down by his neck, and her laugh is lost into the pulsing music when he rubs himself against her backside.

This must be grinding, Erik thinks, and Charlotte pushes something bright and warm to him, like a laugh. She wiggles against him, he bites her ear, he feels himself start to get warm low in his belly, so he spins her before they can get too carried away and slips his tongue into her mouth.

Erik lifts her up under her thighs and presses her to the wall with his hips. She locks her ankles behind him, and Erik can feel her erection. The gold lights above them flicker and capture her pretty pink blush. _Beautiful,_ Erik thinks, makes sure she hears it, before leaning down and licking a stripe up her neck, across her chin, the sandy texture of stubble coming through there. 

In an instant, Charlotte is pushing him off with one hand on his head, the other covering her chin. She stares at him with wide, frightened eyes, her breaths shallow.

 _Charlotte_? he thinks gently, watches her patiently. 

 _I…_ She swallows, hesitant. _Are you sure you don’t mind that I’m--_ She looks away, down, and a fresh wave of pink that has nothing to do with alcohol flushes hers cheeks. _This..._ Her hand comes up to cover her jaw more fully, her fingers rubbing unconsciously across the shadow of stubble exposed through the foundation there, as though rubbing it could get rid of it. _Most men don’t like me like this,_ she thinks, a soft, sad, almost embarrassed whisper in his head.

Slowly, Erik reaches up to lift her hand off her face, and then he looks at her. She blushes even harder. Automatically, she inclines her head, as though trying to hide her jaw.

 _Habit_ , she thinks at him. _I’m used to… hiding._

Erik nudges his nose with hers, shutting his eyes slowly and bringing his forehead to hers. He can feel tension pulling all her senses taut, and he tries to project reassurance and genuine desire for her as she is. He maps her jaw with his lips, soft and slow, and he moves against her, leaving his mark against her throat, above the ascot. She shudders hard, and eventually lets her head tip back to allow him in _._

Erik doesn’t stop kissing her. She’s too perfect to not be loved. _Go out with me,_ he pushes, and she scratches behind his ears and starts to shake. Her legs clench around his waist. _Go out with me, tomorrow night, wherever you want._

“And you can be Charlotte,” he says close to her ear. Erik knows she hears him because she makes a soft, desperate little noise. “Or you can be Charles. I’ll love both.”

A surge of surprised warmth rushes from her mind into his. It feels as though every display of affection that Erik shows her is something unbelievable, something too good to be true, and Erik wonders just how deep her hurt runs, and feels a bitter well of resentment for whatever caused it. 

But Charlotte sighs, hot in his ear. Brings him back. “Okay,” Charlotte smiles, her expression wet and breathless, and then she beams, and her grin splits her kiss-red mouth, and her foundation is blotchy, but Erik’s hickeys dot her throat and remind her not to be afraid anymore. “Yes, okay.”

 

When they’re not kissing or dancing or touching, they’re drinking, and the one time they’re doing none of those things is when Erik’s taken them out to the tables to cuddle. Charlotte’s taken off her stilettos, and Erik nurses her stockinged feet in his lap. Her legs are shimmery.

Emma has messaged him with an all-caps, typo ridden, _where are you,_ and she sends a string of random emojis after that. And then she sends a little eggplant, and then about one hundred -- if Erik had to guess -- little raindrop emojis. He pulls a face. He knows she isn’t talking about the weather.

Charlotte’s leaning against his shoulder sleepily, a dopey smile pulling her mouth. Her lipstick is almost all gone. “That’s your friend, the white one,” she slurs.

“Emma,” Erik agrees, flicking his phone closed and then showing Charlotte the lock screen. Phone-Emma and Phone-Erik are smiling up at them. “She’s my best friend.”

Charlotte pokes Phone-Emma’s grin. “That’s sweet,” she sighs dreamily. “My sister is probably my best friend. You’d like her.”

“I’d like to meet her,” he decides, “When it comes to that.”

“Soon, I hope,” laughs Charlotte. They’re acting like the teenagers he teaches, but as Charlotte pulls him down for another kiss, he can hardly worry about it.

 

“There you are!” shrieks Emma, and she nearly trips over her shoes as she runs at them.

They’re tucked away on the outdoor dancefloor, and Charlotte's stilettos are back on. Erik has his arms around Charlotte’s waist. She’s biting at his collar.

Erik watches Emma’s stumbling gallop across the courtyard through fuzzy eyes. He thinks she looks mad. Oh. He forgot to reply to her text.

“I’ve been trying to find you all night!” she bellows, and several people turn to look, but she can’t win against the ferocious EDM. “I--”

She seems to then notice Charlotte. Charlotte then seems to notice her. She turns to look over her shoulder, and grins.

“Oh,” surprise, and her anger evaporates. “You found Charlotte.”

Erik grimaces, because he knows that Emma’s spied the small country-sized hickey throbbing on his neck. He ushers them to a quieter part of the courtyard, and Charlotte palms at his chest.

With an excited gasp she turns to look up at Erik. “You talk about me?”

Emma rolls her eyes, and oh, no, Erik knows that look. “Sugar, the only things Erik’s _thought_ about are _I wonder what Charlotte is doing_ and _I wonder if Charlotte would like this turtleneck._ Believe me, I know.” She taps her temple. Erik flushes. Then she turns on him. “And I know that it’s time for me to call it a night. My suppressants are wearing off, and I--”

“Oh,” interrupts Charlotte, pulling at her clutch. “I have some extra if you’d like.” She thrusts a little aluminium sheet towards Emma.

She smiles airly. “Take as many as you need.”

“You’re a sweetie,” Emma says smiling. “But I wanted to tell Erik that I was leaving. Our lightweight friend is down-” Emma rolls her eyes “-again.”

Charlotte pouts, and Erik wants to bite her lip. Emma snaps her fingers to get him back. “Sorry. Right. Okay. We’re going?”

“You can stay if you’d like to, but we do have that silly thing tomorrow," Emma groans.

Oh. Shit. _Shit._ The _brunch._

He’d forgotten all about it.

“It’s okay,” slurs Charlotte. “I’m so tired that I can’t even hear _myself_ think. I should find my friends…”

She slumps against Erik’s side, he hoists her up. “Come on, let’s find them.”

They teeter though the courtyard and into the bar, where there seems to be even more people than there was before. He spies Angel, but he’s busy with Kurt, and he doesn’t really want to see his student while he’s off his face like this.

He spies Logan ordering something at the bar but Logan is… a definite and solid No. His bulging muscles are defined and solid across his back. No.

“Where do you think Jean might be?”

Charlotte makes a noise against his neck.

Erik swallows, and pauses. “I could take you home with me, but I just have a--” He has that stupid brunch. He bites his tongue. Guilt is the prickly feeling running up his neck and twisting his belly.

“No,” mumbles Charlotte. She’s so cute like this, pawing at him, warm against his side. “No, I have to be somewhere tomorrow morning.”

The hot flush of jealousy is a surprise, but Erik quells it before Charlotte has any chance of feeling it off him. He doesn’t need to feel jealous. They’ve spent the whole night in each other’s mouths.

And he knows they’ll have plenty more nights together.

“Wait,” halts Emma, and she wheels around. “Jean? Jean Grey?”

She gives Erik a panicked look, and he sighs through his nose. He nods at the bar. She turns slowly, and then she squawks loudly.

“No,” he thinks she whispers, as Logan edges through the crowd. “That’s fucked up.”

The time between finding Jean, finding Scott, and then finding Bobby sobbing face-down onto a table behind them all seems to blend together into a mushy feeling in his gut and a dazed spinning sensation when he closes his eyes. Erik’s sure Charlotte’s gone to sleep on him, and he passes her over reluctantly to Jean. Already, protective heat is fizzing beneath his skin, and has him wanting to bare his teeth, but then--

“Tomorrow night,” Charlotte reminds him sluggishly. She throws up a hand to point at him. Points about five paces to the left of him instead. “You’re taking me out tomorrow night.”

Yes, tomorrow night, Erik thinks as he half-carries Bobby to the taxi, watching Jean, Logan and Scott cram into a cab of their own. No matter what happens at the brunch in the morning, he’ll have tomorrow night with Charlotte.

*

Between the thudding in his head and the groaning to his right, there’s an alarm ringing. For a hazy minute or two Erik simply lies there, caught on the inbetween of wakefulness and unconsciousness, staring at his bedroom wall. There’s a pile of white clothes on the floor, tangled with his black shirt, and his jeans. Erik freezes, and the alarm chirrups with a crisp new kind of clarity.

“Relax,” Emma grunts. Her foot is between his thighs. “Turn that stupid thing off.”

His phone clatters to the floor when he swipes at it and with an irritated flare of his powers he zaps it onto his pillow. It’s ten o’clock. Ten-o-clock, Erik reads slowly. There was something important he was supposed to be doing, around now. There was somewhere he needed to be.

With an unholy screech, Emma sits bolt upright in the bed. “The _brunch_!” She isn’t wearing a shirt. “That _stupid_ brunch!” Or a bra.

Ten o’clock. Ten thirty. Erik kicks the duvet off his legs and then rolls onto the floor, muffling his grunt in the fuzzy carpet. On the other side of the bed Emma is stumbling about, sidestepping shoes and pillows. Instead of going for her clothes she reaches Erik and hauls him up by his armpits.

“Get in the shower!” she yells, pushing him down the hall. She’s only wearing her underpants. “We’re going to this for _you,_ you _must_ be presentable!”

But he has Charlotte now. He’s got a date. He wants to say this. But instead, as she frantically screws the faucets he mutters weakily, “I’m going to vomit.”

After his shower (and a strategic puke) he finds a glass of aspirin and plain toast on the counter. He can hear Emma in his room down the hall, clattering about, no doubt looking for suitable clothes. The microwave reads ten past now, and he curses and sculls the water.

“We could just say we’re not going,” Erik suggests. Emma’s somehow made a new outfit out of her clothes from last night and one of Erik’s flannels, and she looks more put together than he does on a day when he isn’t so hungover he could die. She’s even got fresh makeup. He gapes at her. Emma just points to the jeans and tee folded on the freshly made bed.

“I want to marry you,” he blurts. Emma snorts.

“Charlotte wouldn’t like that very much. And we’re going. I have a feeling about this.”

“I have a feeling, too. It’s the shots we did last night.”

Emma gives him a _look._

At least Drunk-Erik managed to plug his mobile in so it’s not deadflat, and he spies that he has a bundle of unopened messages from about five different people. Most are from last night, along with Emma’s _where are you_ and something from Kitty that looks like lyrics of some kind. Then there’s Charlotte. He’d told her to message him when she got home. She had.

 **[02:26]  
**_> > save and snug <3333333_  
  
It’s adorable. Charles is adorable. Erik grins down at his phone, and his thumbs itch to tap out a message.

“None of that,” snaps Emma, pushing him to his dresser and dusting some of her powder on his nose. She rubs foundation on his neck; it's futile. He looks gaunt and disgusting and his chin is covered in whiskers. “I can’t work with you. We have to leave it at that.”

She throws a pair of sunglasses at him, and then tows him out the door.

“I’m driving, you’re not even alive.” She fiddles with the keys to Erik’s car before he simply unlocks it with a flick of his wrist.

Emma’s not really grumpy, he knows that, so Erik has no qualms sitting in silence as she drives them into town. He taps out a message to Charles, even though Erik knows he probably isn’t even awake himself. Or herself? Is she Charlotte today? It fills Erik with a twisty kind of excitement to think about. Charles is on his couch, while Charlotte works the bar. Charles goes shopping, while Charlotte is in Erik’s bed.

_< < Good morning love, last night was really wonderful x _

The bright beam of happiness that warms him up inside cuts through the nausea. Erik would drink himself silly every day if it meant he got to feel this to make up for it.

Emma parks them on Stark Street just past ten thirty. She all but parkours from the car to the sidewalk to the cafe to save time. Erik keeps to a leisuredly slug. Inside, coffee hits his senses and cleans his soul. It’s followed by the warm sour tang of fresh bread and the sweetness of sugary cakes. His stomach dangerously lurches then; maybe no.

Charles has opened his text, but he hasn’t replied. Erik isn’t worried, though.

He keeps his sunglasses on as Emma looks around the cafe for Kitty, who waves at them from a table by the windows. There are already three other people there, but Erik only recognises Irene. She sits like a queen beside Kitty. There’s a lady with brilliant blue skin and a shock of red hair curling around her shoulders, and a young man next to her, as wiry-looking as his glasses.

Erik immediately pulls a face. This must be the guy Kitty wants him to be with. He’s…. okay, Erik supposes. He looks like he’s allergic to grass, and like he sneezes a lot and says sorry a lot. Best to just let him down easily, then.

He pulls out a chair next to Irene, who grins at him like a smug cat would.

“I’m so glad you two made it!” shouts Kitty, leaning across Irene to wrap Erik up in a crushing hug. He’s worried she’s going to squeeze the sick from him. “You were pretty messy last night, Erik.” She laughs loudly. Too loudly. He shuffles down in his seat frumpily, and eyes his phone.

“This is Raven,” continues Kitty regardlessly. “And this is her boyfriend, Hank.”

“It’s ah, nice to meet you,”Hank greets softly. He stretches his hand out over the table. Oh. Good. He’s already taken. Erik gives him a firm shake.

Raven is leaning on the table, staring straight at him. It’s unnerving, but Erik slides his sunglasses up on his head. If anything that makes her stare harder.

“So, you’re the one shacking up with my brother.”

Erik swallows. _Actually, last night I spent three hours getting handsy with this other guy in a dress, so._ For some reason Erik doesn’t think that’d play well with her. He keeps his mouth shut, and offers a shrug.

“Where _is_ that brother of yours?” Kitty wonders, peering out the window. “I should have confirmed with him that he was coming, or something.”

Raven shrugs. “He does whatever he wants when he’s sober, he does little at all when he’s hungover. He’ll come though. He was moping yesterday. I told him I’d beat his arse if he kept it up.”

“I’ll message him now.” Kitty fumbles with her phone. “Was he out last night?”

“Probably, he had the night off.”

Something niggles at Erik, something that makes his ears hot and his fingers tap against the tabletop. He looks out the window. People saunter along the footpath, but he spies no one he recognises. No one _blue._ God, it better not be Kurt. A brother. Erik frowns.

“Oh, look, Sea has replied. He says he’s coming now.”

Erik turns back to Kitty. She’s waving the phone screen at him but he can hardly catch a glimpse. “Sea?” What kind of a nickname is _sea_?

But Kitty’s shaking her head. “No, like, initial C.” She’s typing something. “C is for Charles.”

Seconds pass. Surely not. C is for Charles. _Charles._ There are probably a hundred Charleses in the city, this Charles probably isn’t even from Hammer Bay. But Erik’s heart is thumping so hard in his chest he feels wobbly, and his breathing has shallowed. Charles. Tutoring. Brother and sister. The _club--_

The bell atop the door at the front of the store jingles so violently Erik hears it all the way over at their small table. Beside him, Emma perks in her seat.

Footsteps, heavy and rushed, boots. Erik feels a watch, but he also feels a distinct bangle, a ring on an index finger.

It can’t be. Things don’t work like that. Erik’s life doesn’t work like that. There are a hundred different people named Charles, and Erik isn’t lucky enough for things to work out that easy for him.

Kitty calls out beside him. She waves her arms above her head.

Erik looks up.

A Charles with pretty blue eyes and wild brown hair is hurrying over to them. This Charles has shadows smudged under his lashes, and hickeys on his throat, and a red chin from a rushed shave. He’s wearing a shirt and a cardigan and slacks, and he has a clutch handbag on one shoulder. It’s white. Last night there’d been a case of lipstick in it. Erik knows, because last night he’d helped Charlotte re-apply it; before kissing it off again.

Maybe, if Erik hadn’t been so drunk he would have pieced it together. If he hadn’t had Charles in his lap, in his mouth, with his hands under his shirt, his brain might have still kept some level of comprehension, might have been able to think something other than _Charlotte touch me Charlotte kiss me_. But he’d been drunk on drinks, and drunk on kisses, and now hungover on all of it; clarity only comes now.

C is for Charlotte.

Charles smiles down at the group for a grand total of two seconds before his eyes land on Erik everything stops. Erik can see the sharp breath he sucks, he can see the realisation creeping across his face.

“Oh,” he breathes quietly. “I--”

“Charles, this is Erik!” Kitty beams. “He and I work together. And Erik, this is Charles. His sister is my housemate, and we both help out at the centre.”

Erik can hardly hear her. He’s too busy staring at Charles and smiling like a dork.

“We’ve met,” Erik says lowly, still grinning, now standing. Charles is blushing hard and fidgeting with his clutch, and he looks as kiss-ruined as he did last night; but he’s also _happy._ He isn’t the Charles from the grocers, curled in on himself and scared. With greasy hair and patchy remnants of foundation, he looks new and fresh and reborn.

“Oh, we’ve very much met,” Charles agrees, swallowing thickly. He sits. He stares down at his cutlery, grinning, and then he looks back up, just to make sure Erik is still there.

“...Okay,” says Kitty slowly. Emma is laughing into her palm. “Who’s going to explain what’s happening? I thought you two would be good for each other? Oh, no, don’t tell me you’re exes or something.”

“No, no,” chuckles Charles, picking at a menu. He hides his blush behind it. “Not at all.”

He winks at Erik. Erik grins back, all teeth. Oh. Everything is falling into place. Everything is bright.

“In fact,” Charles continues, and the way he’s smiling makes Erik breathless and full and calm and fixed, “We’re going on our first date tonight.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3


End file.
